Kamen Rider Sync
by Hurricane's Quill
Summary: Teisuke Tamori was just a DJ trying to make it big. But after he comes across a strange portable CD player on his way to a Zwei Wing concert, he and his friend Hibiki Tachibana will have to rely on their new powers and each other to defeat the alien Noise, with only the song in their hearts as their weapon. That, and badass battle armor. Kamen Rider Sync, on air!
1. Track 00

**I'd wanted to make this story for a while: a Symphogear crossover with an all-original Kamen Rider. And finally, I feel comfortable with my position on it to post it here. It is also on SpaceBattles, because I wanted to get some help creating the character and suit for it, and after a few chapters, I'm fine with where it's gone.**

 **So now, you can enjoy. Salud!**

* * *

 **Track 00: The End**

 _With eight thousand cries,_

 _the lil' cuckoo's blood red tongue,_

 _Like a flame singing._

Miku Kohinata had heard the phrase before. It was said that the little bird would continue to singing, even as it continued to cough up blood. It had been accompanying her ever since she got on the bus, dressed in a rain-soaked school uniform and carrying a bouquet of flowers. Nobody really seemed to notice she was dripping all over the floor, they were just trying to get some sleep from the previous night's destruction on their way to their next destination.

The battle that had raged was one of the most devastating in Japan's history. Whole swathes of districts had been laid to waste and thousands of people had been killed. Victory had been attained, at the very least, but the costs were going to be massive. In Miku's mind, they had already become insurmountable.

The bus stopped at Miku's destination. Miku stepped off the bus and into the graveyard, which had also suffered damage in the melee but not nearly as much compared to the inner city. The rain had stopped, but the puddles on the stones and the rain dripping from the nearby eaves were a reminder of the storm that had just come through. She finally stopped in front of two gravestones, but one in particular, adorned with flowers and a picture of a young girl with short brown hair in the same uniform, a look of surprise on her face. The epitaph simply read a name.

Hibiki Tachibana.

And Miku promptly fell to her hands and knees, the bouquet flying out of her hands in a flurry of white petals.

"I wanted to see you…I hate that I can't...Hibiki…!'

Hibiki was just like that cuckoo bird. She sang her song and paid for it in blood.

The rain started again. And the rain drowned out Miku's sobs.

How could things have gotten to this?

That story shall be told.


	2. Track 01

**Track 01: The Transforming DJ! Kamen Rider Sync, On Air!**

Hibiki Tachibana was going to a Zwei Wing concert!

Hibiki was a huge music nut, and she'd been hoping to go to a live concert for the longest time. Thankfully, her friend Miku Konihata had managed to secure them a pair of tickets for Zwei Wing, one of the biggest musical duos on the scene, so she was finally going to be cashing in. At least she was, but Miku had yet to show up, even though Hibiki had already shown up in a pink shirt, skirt, and white sweater, done up her sand brown hair, and gotten in line. So she quickly dialed up Miku to figure everything out, and…

" _Sorry, something got in the way..._ "

"What? Why!?" Hibiki asked, startling a few people nearby with how loud she was. "You're the one who invited me here!"

" _My aunt in Morioka had an accident. Dad's gonna drive us over to make sure she's okay._ "

"Miku, I barely know this group!"

" _I'm really sorry. Bye..._ "

Miku hung up, leaving Hibiki rather frustrated as she put away her phone. "I honestly think I'm cursed."

* * *

"Hello, DJ Sync...yes…I understand...no, it's fine. Thank you for your consideration. Goodbye."

Teisuke Tamori hung up his phone and promptly threw an empty CD case at the opposite wall, groaning as he leaned back in his chair. He'd been getting that particular call a few too many times. Still, that was the life of a musician sometimes. The Lord of Gigs giveth, the Lord of Gigs taketh away.

Teisuke spun his chair around back towards the computer behind him, rigged up with an electronic keyboard and mixing panel. He'd been slaving over the mix he'd been using to show all the local club and bar owners in town, and even then he'd still been tweaking it to make it absolutely perfect and hedge his bets. Three of them had already called with no answers. One of them had actually gone so far as to open with, "the hell is this mental illness you call music?"

Yeah. That bad.

Teisuke opened the tray on his CD drive, and a blank CD-R came out of it. It was so hard to find CD-Rs anymore, especially in a digital-based market, but for Teisuke, CDs were more about the memories. CDs used to be the big thing back when he was a kid, and he'd always wanted to see his own music on a shelf at a record store (back when they were still called record stores). Of course, in the music business, it wasn't enough to just have a few good songs and know how to play some instruments. And for DJs, reputation mattered a lot more.

Too bad the reputation of Teisuke Tamori, AKA DJ Sync, was pretty much in the crapper. All in all, it was going to be a pretty lousy day.

Then his phone rang again. Hope welled up in him for another moment, only to recognize the number that was calling him. "Hibiki, if you've gotten yourself in trouble again, I swear to God-" He hit ANSWER. "Hibiki-chan?"

 _"Teisuke-kun! Do you want to go to the Zwei Wing concert with me?_ "

Teisuke leaned forward in his chair, curious. "How in the name of Louis Armstrong did you get your hands on a pair of Zwei Wing concert tickets?"

" _My friend Miku got them from her dad, but...anyway, I'm here and I don't want to be all by myself...so do you want to come?_ "

Teisuke adjusted the half-rim glasses he was wearing, considering it. "Well, I wouldn't mind, obviously, but why call me? I figured I'd be way lower on your list of friends-"

" _Why would you be that low? You're a friend and that's all that matters!_ "

Teisuke chuckled. Hibiki could be hopelessly naive, but be damned if he didn't like that about her. He figured Hibiki was something like the little sister he'd never had and kinda wish he did growing up. Plus, one did not simply pass up a chance to see _Zwei Wing_ , of all things. Zwei Wing tickets were like unicorns, given how popular they were.

He immediately grabbed the keys for his motorcycle.

"Tell me where you are in line. I'm on my way."

* * *

Teisuke happened to live in the same town as Hibiki, having moved from his hometown in Shibuya once he was old enough. And the cool thing was, Teisuke had his own motorcycle, a blue and green Kawasaki Ninja 10R, so getting around traffic that existed around town was something he could easily do. The hard part would be trying to find Hibiki in the massive crowd of people that had formed a line snaking through much of the main entry to the stadium. So, after finding a place to park, he started making his way down, trying to clean up his wavy brown hair from the helmet look that it had acquired.

"Hey, _shounen..._ "

Teisuke halted. Who was that speaking? He looked around, pointing at himself.

"Yes, you. With the brown hair and the Lucio shirt. This way."

Teisuke frowned. Lucio was a popular DJ from Brazil that he followed. He'd only just started gaining a following in Japan, but whoever was talking (with a really thick American accent in their Japanese) knew who he was, too. He quickly directed himself in the direction of the speaker, where a man in a ball cap and a New York Giants shirt was sitting, carrying something in his hands. Curious, despite his better judgment, he approached the man. "Looking for me?"

"You look like the kinda guy who gets music," the man said. "Maybe I can interest you in something?"

Teisuke thought about it. He hadn't thought about buying any souvenirs and figured Hibiki would be buying her own, as she'd been gifted the tickets. Still, that was no reason to appear interested. "You could say that about anyone coming down this way. Why would I be interested in anything you have?"

"A musician knows," was all the man said.

"...fair enough," Teisuke said. "What'cha got?"

The man produced a portable CD player. Teisuke hadn't even seen one in years, especially seeing as digital/cloud media had risen to such prominence as it did now. But this one was one of the strangest ones he'd seen yet. It was a gunmetal gray thing with a clear bottom to show the inside of the disc tray. Yes, tray. Unlike most others, which had just a simple lid, this actually had a disc tray that was used by computers like the one he had back in his apartment. As Teisuke took it to observe further, he felt a strange electricity in his hand briefly, as though there were an energy hanging around it. If there was a power source, he couldn't quite find it. And then it was gone.

"I gotta say, I'm curious about the design. Where'd you say you got it from?" The man said nothing, as he was already walking away. "Hey! Where are you going? Didn't you want money?"

"Nah, keep it. I think it looks good with you..." And with that, the man had vanished into the crowd and was gone.

Teisuke blinked, not sure what on earth just happened. Still, retro music players weren't exactly a dime a dozen. He figured he could get some use out of it. He tapped it experimentally, trying to see if the tray opened, but nothing happened. Teisuke rolled his eyes; the guy probably was just trying to dump broken tech onto the first guy he came across. Whatever, he probably would toy around with it to try and fix it later. "Well. That happened."

"Teisuke-kun!"

Teisuke put the thing in the chest pocket of his jacket as he turned to face Hibiki running towards him. "Hibiki, what are you doing here?"

"I just wanted to make sure you showed up! Here!" she handed him one of the tickets.

Teisuke took the ticket, but there was something clearly sticking out in this whole situation. "Um...Hibiki, I appreciate that you wanted to actually meet me here, but...weren't you already in line when you called me? Was meeting me worth giving up your spot in line?"

"Huh…?" Hibiki blinked, then looked back at the line, which seemed to have already doubled in size in the handful of minutes it had taken for her to leave, make her way back, and meet her friend. "Now I _know_ I'm cursed!"

Teisuke chuckled, ruffling the poor girl's head. "Come on, let's get back in line. We've still got plenty of time before showtime."

* * *

Deep under the stage, Tsubasa Kazanari, one of the two members of Zwei Wing, had taken cover in one of the maintenance tunnels. Dressed in a robe to keep the costume underneath clean of any dirt or whatever off it and her blue hair from getting undone, she rested against a nearby crate, silently counting down the seconds until showtime.

"It's hard filling in the time, ain't it? It's always hardest right before showtime," asked a voice as she came over. Like Tsubasa, she was also wearing a robe to cover her costume, but she pulled the hood off of her robe, letting her long red hair run wild behind her. As Tsubasa nodded, she took a seat on the opposite crate, scratching at her head. "I'm just dying to go wild on stage, but _noooooo_ , the old man won't let me."

"Yeah..."

Kanade Amou, the other half of Zwei Wing, looked back at her partner. "Come on, Tsubasa, don't tell me you're nervous."

"Why would I not?" Tsubasa countered, turning bright red. "I mean, Sakurai-san said today especially is-"

Kanade flicked Tsubasa's forehead. "Geez, lighten up, will ya?"

"Kanade. Tsubasa. There you are." The two looked over as a man clad in a suit as red as his hair and golden eyes made his way over.

"Commander..." mumbled Tsubasa.

"Old man Genjuro! Nice of you to join us for our pre-show ritual!" said Kanade.

Genjuro Kazanari ignored the jibe. "I trust you two realize that today is of-"

"Of paramount importance, yeah we know," Kanade said, waving it off. "Don't sweat it."

Genjuro smiled. "Then I'll be keeping you two at your word. This show tonight will decide the future of humanity."

"So no pressure!" Kanade grinned.

Genjuro reached into his jacket and pulled out a cell phone. "Yes?"

" _Cheerio! Ryoko Sakurai reporting in! Preparations are complete on our end!_ "

"Good. I'll be right there," said Genjuro.

Back topside, Teisuke (thanks to the weird guy not asking for money for the _broken_ CD player) had bought Hibiki a set of glow sticks to wave around in the proud Japanese pop concert tradition. As they stepped through the doors leading out into the arena proper, he could see Hibiki's eyes light up with wonder at the stage, which had been designed so that there was a crowd underneath a cross with a Zwei Wing symbol in the center, leading out from the stage and its stained glass backdrop. Although not nearly as enthused as his compatriot, Teisuke could feel his heartbeat also pick up slightly with the anticipation.

And then, for the briefest moment, he heard something. It sounded like another heartbeat, relatively close. Then another. And another. And another. Teisuke shook his head, touching at his forehead.

"Teisuke-kun?" Hibiki asked. "Are you okay?"

Teisuke blinked. The sounds were gone. "I'm fine. Come on, let's get our seats."

* * *

"So, we just leave the hard stuff to the commander and Sakurai-san, and we'll just do what we do best on stage!" Back underground, Kanade had taken up stretching in preparation. Tsubasa hadn't moved from her position, even after all the time that had already passed. Kanade looked over at Tsubasa, and then promptly snuck up behind her to give her a hug. "Yeesh, Tsubasa, you're so stiff. Reeds in the wind live on where oaks fall."

"Kanade..." Tsubasa mumbled, cheeks flaring pink a moment.

"We're a team, Tsubasa. None of this is any fun if you've got a face like that," Kanade added. "I mean, if we're not enjoying it, then all those people outside aren't going to, either."

Tsubasa finally smiled, looking back up at her partner. "Well, I guess it'll work out if we're together."

Kanade nodded and let go of Tsubasa. Then she stood up, looking up towards the tunnel leading out onto the stage and the crowd. "Yeah. Together, we are Zwei Wing, the two wings that will fly to the ends of the earth!"

Tsubasa finally stood up, joining her partner at the entrance. "Together, we can do anything!"

The arena went dark, a sign the show was about to begin. Almost immediately, the stands lit up with cheers and orange glow sticks. Then, in a flurry of white feathers, Zwei Wing descended onto the stage from above, like a pair of one-winged angels. Kanade was wearing a strapless white and pink dress and high heels. Tsubasa, a white and blue tank top and matching skirt, and white thigh-high boots. And they launched right into one of their biggest hits to date, "Gyakko no Flugel."

"Holy..." Teisuke mumbled, awed by the entrance.

Hibiki cracked her orange glow stick. As it promptly lit up, she joined in the cheers.

Zwei Wing was like a well-oiled machine. Their movements on point, their singing right on key, and add to the fact that they were both smiling the only way pure joy could make anyone smile just added even more energy to the crowd. Then, to everyone's surprise, the roof of the arena lit up and promptly opened, revealing a pair of wings as well as the sunset that turned the sky golden. If one didn't know any better, they probably could stretch their wings to the far edges of the earth with their music. Maybe even beyond.

Finally, the song ended, and cheers seemed to shake the stadium from roof to floor. Hibiki was completely enthralled by the experience, a smile plastered on her face. If this is what Miku had wanted them to be here for, imagine what it would've been like if she had made along with Teisuke! _I can't look away and my heart's pounding…! Is this what a live concert is like?_

A new song immediately started up.

"We're not done yet!" Kanade said. "Lemme hear you make some noise!"

* * *

Meanwhile, down underneath the stage, Genjuro was in a laboratory with Ryoko Sakurai, his partner in crime. The Zwei Wing concert was more than just a concert for him; it was also one of the biggest experiments of his career. Recently, they had discovered the Nehushtan Armor, a powerful relic of ages past, and thanks to theories that Ryoko had postulated, they had a way to awaken it: song. And so, under the ongoing performance of Zwei Wing, they had been steadily pumping the music from the concert into an enclosed space holding the armor. Like clockwork, they had gotten a reaction right from the start, but hopefully…

"Phonic gain is within expected range," reported one scientist.

"Guess we can call this one a success," Genjuro said, sighing in relief.

Ryoko, a woman in her thirties with brown hair done up in a bun and hot pink glasses, was a bit more overt in her cheer. "Whee! Great job, everyone! That's a win!"

The other scientists cheered and congratulated each other on a job well done. But, that's the thing about Murphy's Law: it still applies. No sooner had the champagne cork flown off to some corner in the room than one of the computers immediately started beeping and its screen turned red.

"What's going on!?" demanded Genjuro.

"The internal suppressors can't handle the pressure! At this rate, the relic will awaken...no, it's going to go berserk!"

* * *

An explosion ripped through the center of the arena, cutting right through the middle of Zwei Wing's next song. For a moment, Kanade and Tsubasa stopped, wondering what on earth had just happened as smoke obscured much of the crowd that had been cheering for them only seconds ago. And then, Kanade happened to see what looked like ash flying by on the breeze.

Her easygoing expression immediately hardened into the seriousness of a warrior. "The Noise are coming."

Noise. The greatest living terror of the postmodern era.

The Noise appeared seemingly at random, and the forms they took were as varied as the stars in the sky. Some appeared like the green miniature airplanes, soaring through the sky like deadly geese as they dived down into the stadium. Others took the form of massive worm/termite-like creatures, burrowing up from the stadium to chase the concertgoers that hadn't already been killed in the initial explosion. Others took the form of alien soldiers, armed with twin guns. But one thing was clear: they always showed up in large numbers, and they targeted humans with absolute prejudice.

The slaughter began.

The worm Noise sprayed dark green acid out of their mouths and sprayed the ground, creating smaller glob Noise that immediately charged with the soldier Noise, trying to catch out the slower humans who couldn't react as fast as the rest and start running. And those that were were pounced on by the glob Noise, and as they cried out and screamed, their bodies turned black and crumbled into ash, floating away just to add to the terror. The green plane Noise immediately banked around, turning their bodies into flying bullets the size of geese as they flew right into the frontrunners trying to get to the exits.

"Tsubasa, it's time to fly!" Kanade said. "We're the only ones who can fight the Noise!"

"But the commander hasn't-" began Tsubasa.

"Screw that guy! People are getting killed out here!" And so Kanade immediately ran off the stage and took a flying leap into the air.

And she sang a single line. " _Croitzall ronzell Gungir zillz..._ "

Kanade's dress flew right off her as energy covered her body, turning into a form-fitting white and orange body suit with gauntlets. As she landed on the ground, she brought her hands together, and the gauntlets transformed into a large spear that she immediately grabbed and charged headlong into the fray. Two glob Noise tried to jump her, but she instantly sliced through the both of them. A soldier Noise was quick to follow, but she impaled that one and threw him to the side, a song on her lips. She blew through the Noise like a hurricane, slicing and spearing her way through the monsters that had so rudely interrupted her concert. She leaped into the air and threw her spear down into the mass of Noise before her, and it promptly multiplied several times over, clearing out the front line of glob Noise with her **Stardust Photon.** Grabbing the original lance, she dived right back into the skirmish.

Tsubasa, meanwhile, had also finally arrived on the scene. Gone was her own costume, instead replaced with her own form-fitting body suit of black and blue, a katana in her hands as she sliced through the horde of Noise. Kanade had impaled another soldier Noise on her spear, and the head began to spin, creating a tornado that not only blew it back, but carried it through several of its brethren and even hoisted one of the worm Noise high into the air before they all exploded in ash, courtesy of her **Last Meteor.**

Kanade and Tsubasa came back together and charged the Noise, weapons ready. Whether it was Zwei Wing or fighting Noise, nothing could get in the way of their teamwork.

* * *

Teisuke was trying to find any other way out of the stadium, but most the other areas had been blocked off by debris or destroyed by the Noise. Hopefully Hibiki had gotten out while she still could. Evacuating from a place with multiple levels tended to be crazy, especially when interdimensional monsters from hell kept popping up like the Noise did. But somehow, he'd found himself on the first floor, driven there by fate. Or maybe his incredibly poor sense of direction, it was hard to tell. And when he looked up back the way he came...there was Hibiki, frozen in shock at the battle playing out in front of her.

"Oh sweet mother of-" Teisuke turned, starting to backtrack towards the concourse, but suddenly, a small explosion ripped through the upper seating directly under Hibiki, and the section collapsed, with Hibiki falling along with it. " _Hibiki-chan!_ "

Teisuke's cry got the Noise's attention, only for the nearest one to get impaled by Kanade's spear. "You guys are still fighting us, you got it!?" The rest of the Noise promptly ignored her and began firing globs of green goo out of their bodies, trying to snipe the DJ as he ran to go find his friend. "Geez, that usually works in the movies!"

"Only in the really bad ones you like so much!" Tsubasa countered, slicing through another with her sword.

"Come on! _Sharknado 2_ was not bad and you know it!"

"Hibiki-chan!" Teisuke reached Hibiki, clambering over pieces of concrete and rebar. He wasn't sure, but something in his chest pocket was starting to feel really hot. "You okay!?"

"Ow...I think so…!" Good news, she'd fallen on top of the pile, so there was no need to dig her out. Bad news, she'd fallen really hard on her knee. Already the thing was swelling and turning deep purple.

"That knee says otherwise," Teisuke quipped. "Can't do much for it until we get out of here. Can you still walk?" Hibiki nodded, and Teisuke scooped her up, hoisting her onto her good leg as more acid shot over their heads. "Just keep walking and keep your head down! I'll steer you!" Slowly the two new friends hobbled their way towards the only visible exit, the main causeway used for deliveries. More acid fell around them, trying to pick them off.

About halfway through, Hibiki stumbled, flopping off of Teisuke's shoulder. "I can't do it! It hurts!"

"Yes you can! You gotta ignore the pain, keep walking!" Teisuke countered, pulling her back onto her foot.

"It's too much...I can't think straight..." Hibiki cried.

"Focus on something else. I know, focus on my voice!" Teisuke said. "DJ's gotta keep people going with his music, you know..."

Hibiki laughed, hollowed by the bitterness as her sprain bit back at her. Teisuke scooped her up once more, and they started walking again, with Teisuke singing a little song around the impact of acid bombs and Kanade and Tsubasa, fighting somewhere in the distance.

 _And we go -  
Across the meadow! Through the rapids!  
Doooown the mountainside!  
Through the woods, where the wolf and bear live,  
And the B-birds swoop and glide!  
Down the river! To the delta!  
Around that final bend!  
Flash and me, above the great green sea,_  
' _til we got to go home again!_

Meanwhile, Kanade and Tsubasa were doing their best to run interference on the Noise trying to take potshots at the two civilians trying to make their escape while also trying to fight the Noise that engaged them directly. Kanade was certain she'd heard the song the guy was singing once before, way back in the recesses of her memory. Talk about deja vu.

One of the worm Noise in the back hadn't acted for a bit. Suddenly, it shivered and aimed its maw slightly upward. Kanade immediately took the air to intercept the blow with her spear, but the Noise aimed higher and fired a blast about the size of a grapefruit almost like an artillery shot, soaring way over her head.

 _It missed? Noise don't miss at point-blank range!_

" _Look out!_ " Kanade screamed behind her, watching the acid bomb flying through the air towards Teisuke and Hibiki, who hadn't even made it halfway to the exit. A bomb that size, there was no way they'd be able to survive-!

In that moment, Teisuke could feel something else burning in his chest as he turned around, seeing flying green death coming down on the both of them. All sound vanished from his ears as time slowed around him, and all he could hear was the sound of his beating heart, picking up in speed as the reaper came to claim them both.

 **Can you feel it?**

Teisuke wanted to speak, but time had robbed him of his voice. But he could feel something.

Then he could feel another heartbeat. Way faster, but there it was. It was close. He turned his head: it was Hibiki, staring back at him with the same expression in her eyes that he did at the moment: _I'm going to die._

 **Can you feel the Sound?**

Teisuke's fist clenched. _He_ might die, but no way was Hibiki going to die here. He'd rather not die himself, but…

 **Take your Sound and unite it with hers…**

Teisuke suddenly gripped Hibiki by the shoulder with his other hand, trying to steel himself for what came next as he looked into her eyes. Hibiki could feel her wild heartbeat beginning to calm down, looking into Teisuke's eyes. The eyes of a man doomed to die, but determined to face his death with dignity. And in that moment, their hearts' beats came together…

 **This is your power...this is the Gift of Sync…**

Time resumed. So did sound. And Teisuke suddenly threw Hibiki forward as hard as he could, launching the injured girl clear of the incoming bomb while Teisuke spun around and threw open his arms, ready to embrace oblivion.

Splat.

" _Teisuke-kun!_ " Hibiki could only watch in horror as the acid consumed her erstwhile friend, but as the acid spilled away, it was clear something else had happened. Teisuke reappeared amidst the acid, still expecting death with his arms out, a great blue glow coming out of his chest pocket. A blue shield had appeared around him, flickering out of existence after a few seconds.

Teisuke opened one eye, then both eyes. He looked down at himself. "...well. That happened."

"That...that's it? After everything, that's all you say-?" Hibiki asked, happy her friend was alive but rather irked with his anti-climactic reaction, and then winced as her body reminded her she sprained her knee.

Teisuke ignored the question, instead digging into his pocket. The glow was coming from the strange disc player the man had given him outside the arena. After spending the better part of thirty minutes trying to get the tray to open to no avail, it had opened of its own accord. Stranger still was something had happened to his DJ Sync CD. What once was just as a CD-R with a name in Sharpie was now a blue UMD-esque disc with a very professional design.

The Noise seemed to have sense something was off. Some of them broke off, trying find their not-dead target. As if guided by fate, Teisuke took the disc player and held it towards his waist. A belt suddenly shot out of the device and wrapped around his waist.

 **ARE YOU READY?**

The Noise suddenly reacted, shimmering and shivering in barely-contained anger as a slow thumping and cheers came out of the device. They knew what this was. They feared it. They _hated_ it. Teisuke stared right back, placing the DJ Sync CD into the tray. And then, he made a sweeping motion with his hand like he was spinning a table and said one word.

"HENSHIN!"

And he shoved the disc inside.

 **HANDS UP!** **GET YOUR HANDS UP!**

The cheers got louder as a loud electronica dance beat echoed through the empty stadium, surrounding Teisuke in blue light as soundwaves danced around him, mimicking the beat. And then it was all sucked into his body, obscuring him light for only the briefest of seconds before he reappeared.

 **1! 2!** **1, 2, 3, 4!**

And he reappeared in steel blue armor with a green body suit underneath it, bars measuring sound dancing across his chest plate. His helmet obscured his face, with only green pixelated bug eyes to show he even had vision at all, and there was the outline of headphones against the helmet's ears.

 **DJ SYNC!** **ON AIR!**

The eyes blinked. Then looked down at himself.

" _What the ever-living f-_ "

The roar of the worm-like Noise cut off the rest of the graphic statement that Teisuke was about to say, and several of the soldier Noise charged him. Teisuke stumbled back, trying to defend himself and the fallen Hibiki, but somehow as he stepped back, blue soundwaves came out of his boots, disrupting the Noise and sending them flying away in every direction except at their intended targets.

Teisuke looked down at his feet, and then down at his hands. A thought struck him. As the globs advanced to attack him, he clapped his hands once. Another bright blue soundwave soared through the air, and the globs not only were blown back, but they turned to black ash like their victims and blew away in the breeze.

"Whoa! That's actually kinda cool!" said Kanade.

Teisuke had to agree, but at the same time, the sudden appearance of this armor and his Noise-slaying soundwaves was also really confusing. Where the hell did it come from and why did it come from some old CD player he'd bought in town earlier? But then, more glob Noise tried to swarm him all at once.

"Teisuke-kun-!" Hibiki began.

Teisuke's fist clenched. This whole thing had taken a turn at Fourth and Bananas, but despite the crazy armor and the near-death experience, nothing had really changed. He still had something he had to do.

Protect Hibiki at all costs.

"Come on! Let's dance!"

Clap. The soundwave blew through once again, but the Noise suddenly shifted in mid-air, swirling together in a storm of blue to form into a large red being with humongous fists, and it braced against the soundwave as it passed by. Teisuke rolled his shoulder, and then charged headlong at the beast...and then the beast suddenly split in half under Kanade's spear.

"Oi! That was mine!" Teisuke shouted.

"Let you have the next one if you tell me who you are?" Kanade grinned.

Teisuke didn't want to give away his real name. Ally or not, Zwei Wing clearly had some tricks up their sleeve. So, he went with option two. "Sync. Call me DJ Sync. But we still have to get my friend out of here."

"I know," Kanade said. Quickly looking around, she ripped a piece of steel rebar out of a piece of concrete and handed it to Hibiki. "Here. Use this and get to the exit. We'll cover for you."

"But..." Hibiki began, unsure of how she was going to be able to walk without Sync's help, but Sync placed a gloved hand on her shoulder, gently so he wouldn't aggravate her knee.

"The trick is not to think. No matter what, you have to keep moving. Don't be afraid of what's behind you, just keep your eyes on that prize, and know that I've always got your back." Sync pointed towards the tunnel. "And if it helps, keep singing that song I was singing earlier. It's been stuck in my head forever, it may have better use with you than it will with me."

Hibiki took the rebar from Kanade, and slowly nodded before heading out. " _And we go –_ ungh _– across the meadow –_ ow – _through the rapids..._ "

"Where did that song come from?" Kanade asked, turning around to face the advancing Noise, or at least the ones that weren't being dealt with by Tsubasa on the far side of the arena.

"It's an old song my grandma used to sing. It's been popping up in my head a lot lately," Sync shrugged.

"Huh. So it's not just me," said Kanade. "So. What can you do?"

"I don't know. I'm kinda playing this whole thing by ear," said Sync.

"Fair enough," said Kanade, grinning as she gripped her lance. "Just call on me if you get overwhelmed and I'll bail you out, big man."

"Kanade!" Tsubasa's voice called. The Noise were almost upon them.

 **(BGM: Piercing Light [Mako Remix] - League of Legends)**

"Here they come!" said Sync. Somehow, music was starting to fill the arena again. He was halfway certain he was the source, but there was no time to think about that now.

"Okay, here are the rules! No spitting, no kill-stealing, and no foul language. Other than that, go nuts!" Kanade said, and promptly charged into the fray.

"Wait that's it – oh forget it!" Sync's bug eyes promptly took an X shape to mirror its frustration for a moment and ran in after her.

Kanade immediately dived on the nearest glob Noise, slicing through the blob with her lance, and then kicked another sneaking up behind. Sync saw the Noise flying through his field of vision and promptly attempted to punch it, but it was already turning to ash and his fist hit empty air. One of the Soldier Noise tried to smack Sync with its gun, but Sync knocked it away and threw another punch. This one hit, and it, too, turned to ash, but it was promptly replaced with another one shooting something out of its gun. The attack sailed just past his neck, and as Sync hesitated in that moment of missing death twice in almost as many hours, Kanade came in and blew the offending Noise away with another **Last Meteor**. "Getting into trouble already?"

"Shut up!" Teisuke said, his cheeks suddenly hotter than usual.

"Rookie," Kanade grinned and charged forward, impaling another Noise on her spear and throwing it over her shoulder. Two more Noise attempted to crowd in behind her, but Sync quickly stomped on the ground, disrupting them from trying to gank her and he drove his fist into one while throwing it into the other, sending them both flying through the air. More of the Noise quickly came together and reformed into the brute form that attacked Sync earlier, and they tried to jump on the two of them, and they jumped backward to avoid them.

"Got any other tricks up that suit of yours?" asked Kanade.

"I don't know, I just got this thing today!" Sync replied. He quickly took a moment to actually look over his armor for a moment. There was some kind of gauntlet on his right arm, showing something he didn't know what on a screen, and then on his left side was what felt like a...mini record table? He reached down and found it was indeed a detachable object shaped like a record table like the one on his mixing board back in his apartment. And it could attach to the side of his belt buckle thingy. "Let's try this!"

He took the table, plugged it into the side, and gave it a spin.

 **BREAK IT DOWN!**

 **(BGM: Ignite - Zedd)**

Ports on his left leg suddenly opened, and an EDM dance beat began blaring out of speakers that popped out.

Sync started nodding his head to the beat while his non-speaker foot began to tap to the beat.

 _There's a fire that burns inside_

 _It's an instinct that never lies_

 _The target's tattooed between our eyes_

One of the brute Noise charged, swinging a massive fist, but Teisuke dodged and swung his fist in an uppercut, staggering the beast before swinging his other fist in a cross, sending it to skidding across the arena floor.

 _Stand and fight!_

 _Under the lights on the highest stage_

 _A part of your life it can take away_

 _Just like the blood running through your veins_

The other Noise tried to go for Sync, but Kanade, not to be outdone, promptly jumped high in the air to intercept, slashing across its face with her spear before also kicking it away. Another **Stardust Photon** finished it off by piercing it in multiple places.

 _Everyone's watching through your eyes_

 _There's only two options, win or die_

 _Win or die_

 _Win or die (Die die die die die)_

Sync flashed Kanade a thumbs-up briefly before turning to the horde of Noise left, and he focused on one of the huge Worm noise in the back that had been shooting at him earlier. Energy had been consistently gathering in his left leg, and he had a feeling there was a good place to unleash it…

 _It went from a spark to an open flame_

 _Now destiny's calling out your name_

 _So reply, so reply…!_

And he immediately started running and took a flying leap up into the air, way higher than he'd ever been before. The Noise, sensing an easy target, opened fire, launching acid sprays at the flying armored vigilante.

 _AND IGNITE!_

The acid found its mark, but the sound energy proved the stronger and just created a halo for Sync as he flew through the air, and he extended his left leg in a flying side kick. " **ORI-YAAAAAAAH!** "

The kick smashed right through the screen on the monster's face and through its body in one clean strike. Sync landed on the ground as it didn't just turn to ash behind, but out and out exploded in flames and sound waves behind him. That's when he looked up and saw one of the other worm Noise looking down at him. A massive blue wave of energy then sliced it in half, destroying it. Sync took that as his opportunity to reposition as Tsubasa flew by in a blur of blue and black, still swinging her sword. "Thanks for the save!"

He never got a reply. Tsubasa just kept fighting.

Kanade, meanwhile, had been left to covering Hibiki's escape. With Sync gone off to execute one of the worm Noise, the smaller ones had been assailing Kanade to no end, trying to take her out for more free shots at Hibiki. As she cleared out another round of glob Noise, she was just in time to see the color start to drain out of her spear. "Crap. Already at my limit..."

The Noise seemed to have sensed it, too. More of the soldier Noise charged, turning into flying bullets to get through Kanade. Kanade spun her spear, deflecting them all, but with her suit running out of power, she was not going to be able to hold up nearly as well as she could earlier. The worm Noise followed up, unleashing more acid streams at her. Kanade kept spinning, trying to defend Hibiki the best she could.

Then the second worm Noise decided to join in.

" _Kanade!_ "

Sync was still running to try and shore up Kanade's defense, but there was no way he was going to reach it in time because the flying kick maneuver had taken a lot out of him already. The blast hit, and Kanade's armor and spear cracked. A particularly large bit cracked right off the top of the spear and flew through the air. Sync only saw it briefly as it soared through the air like a bullet and then went on its way.

Right into Hibiki's chest.

The poor girl didn't even have time to react and probably couldn't, even if she didn't have a sprained knee and had the reactions of a cat. She was promptly blown off her feet by the impact, sent careening through the air like a ragdoll, and finally crashed against a piece of wall, blood flying every which way out of her chest and onto the ground like a particularly gruesome modern art piece.

Sync had an awful premonition.

" _No! Hibiki-chan!_ " He kicked away a soldier Noise trying to flank him and immediately went over to her. Hibiki was lying on the ground, blood seeping out of her chest, her eyes closed. "Hibiki-chan! Come on, come on, don't do this to me now!" Sync took her hand, trying to feel her heartbeat with that weird Sync trick again. It was still there, but it was desperately flagging around the debris that now occupied its space and beginning to slow. "Hibiki-chan! Wake up! Please!"

Kanade, realizing what had just happened, had also abandoned her weapon to find where her friend had run off to. Upon seeing Hibiki and her rapidly-decaying condition, she immediately picked the girl up by her shoulders. "Don't die, you hear me!? You gotta open your eyes! You just can't give up on living! You got that!? Live! LIVE!"

For a moment, nothing happened. Then, Hibiki sighed, her eyes becoming half-closed. Sync could hear her heartbeat finally beginning to stabilize, somehow, and settle into a slow but steady rhythm. "Oh thank God-"

Kanade sighed, looking down at Hibiki, and then turning back to where she'd dropped her lance, cracked tip and all, and the Noise still milling around them as Tsubasa fought a losing battle against their larger numbers. She had a feeling this day would come at some point. Tsubasa was gonna throw a hissy-fit or two, but, as a certain redhead wizard once said, you can't have everything in life. "Well crap. I always wondered what singing with an empty heart and soul felt like..."

"Huh?" Sync asked. "What does that mean?"

"Get out of here and get that girl to a hospital," Kanade turned around and started walking back to where her spear had fallen. "And lose the armor. As cool as it is, it'll be better to save yourself the questions from the police. I'm gonna clear these guys out for you."

"We've been fighting them all evening! How do you intend to wipe them out when the three of us together barely made a dent in them?" asked Sync.

Kanade picked up her spear. "By singing my best song...my Swan Song."

And so she began to sing, a pink glow coming over her.

 _Gatrandis babel ziggurat edenal_

 _Emustolronzen fine el balal zillz_

 _Gatrandis babel ziggurat edenal_

 _Emulstolronzen fine el zillz_

Tsubasa heard the song, and as the Noise retreated, knowing what might come next, Tsubasa turned to Kanade even as she raised her lance. "Kanade! No! Don't sing that!"

Sync blinked, knowing full well what a swan song was and the implications of such a statement. There had to be better ways of taking them out than sacrificing yourself in a big boom (if that's what she meant at all)! But then he looked down at Hibiki, still struggling to live, and finally had to reconcile with the hard choice. If they were going to win this fight, someone was going to have to lose it. He picked up Hibiki and immediately bolted for the delivery tunnel. As he ran, he heard Hibiki mumble something in her haze of blood loss and pain.

"I can hear her song..."

"Yeah," Sync grunted, holding her closer as he took Hibiki out the door to freedom. "Me too."

Behind them, there was a mighty flash of light. And yet Sync didn't stop running, save for one moment a few seconds later when he heard Tsubasa's scream of anguish. He looked back, said a silent prayer for the fallen, and kept running until finally, he managed to reach the triage area that had been set up outside the stadium.

* * *

Teisuke, after dispelling his armor by taking off the CD Player/belt buckle, and Hibiki were immediately rushed to the hospital. Hibiki was carted off to an operating room to repair whatever damage to her heart she'd suffered as well as to replace all the blood she'd lost. Teisuke was whisked off to the bed in the emergency room to treat the handful of injuries he'd sustained, which mostly came down to a couple of bruised ribs and a concussion from having his head smashed against the wall in the initial mad dash to escape. And yet all Teisuke could think about was Hibiki, even after he was eventually released with a handful of pills to take when he got home and orders to see his doctor within a couple of days.

Back at the hospital, Hibiki had finally regained consciousness on the operating table.

"I'm...alive…"

 **END TRACK 01**

* * *

 ** _Sync Discs: DJ Sync_**


	3. Track 02

**Track 02: Fighters Unite! Gungnir and Sync Resurface!**

Two years had passed since the Zwei Wing Catastrophe. Hibiki had somehow managed to survive her harrowing ordeal after three hours of surgery, and even then they couldn't remove all the debris from her heart. But somehow, she'd managed to survive. It was a lot more that could be said for everyone that had lost their lives, including Kanade Amou, one half of Zwei Wing itself. Tsubasa Kazanari had disappeared from public life since then, but recently had begun to return. Now fifteen years old, Hibiki had enrolled at Lydian Private Music Academy with Miku. And while her first day had started off okay with the singing of the school anthem (despite showing up ten minutes late), there was one problem that she couldn't quite escape in homeroom…

"Tachibana! What are you doing with a cat in the classroom?"

Hibiki winced as she adjusted the small white cat that had taken up residence in her arms at the moment. "Um...this cat climbed up a tree and couldn't get down..."

"And…?" the teacher asked.

"Well, it looked hungry, so..."

This got a few people murmuring at each other. First day of school, and this one girl had the stones to not only show up late, but bring the reason why she was late with her? She was either brave, nuts, stupid, or some combination of the three. Unfortunately, her teacher didn't quite care.

" _Tachibana!_ "

* * *

"I still don't know what you were expecting. You really should've just left it with me," Teisuke said.

" _But you said your roommate was allergic to cats!_ "

"I was gonna drop it off at a shelter on my way to work. If I can't take care of it, what makes you think you could've?"

" _I at least wanted to help!_ "

Teisuke rolled his eyes. "Yeah, that's kinda the issue with you, isn't it?"

Silence fell between them as Teisuke put his cell phone down next to a glass of punch he'd poured himself. Hibiki had a heart of gold, but be damned if that heart of gold didn't get her into trouble at least once a day, and there were a lot of times where he was directly involved. Most of the times, against his will. He sometimes wondered how Miku was able to deal with her for as long as she'd known her.

" _So, how have you been?_ "

Teisuke shrugged, looking out over the corporate party going on in front of him. He'd managed to secure himself a small break by plugging in his MP3 player so he could refresh himself when Hibiki called. "Oh, you know. Can't complain. Got a gig for a State of the Company party. Want to really break out the good stuff, but _nooooo_ , keep it simple and inoffensive, they said. Where are you?"

" _On my way back my room. My teacher kept me after class because of Shiro._ "

"Shiro...you named him?"

" _Turns out he was someone else's cat from the neighborhood. His owners came for him around lunchtime._ "

Teisuke sighed. "You're really lucky that turned out so well." He quickly looked back out over the party, and as some men in suits entered the room. "I gotta go. DJ's gotta get the party going."

" _Bye, Teisuke-kun!_ "

Teisuke hung up and pocketed his phone. He downed another shot of punch, then made his way back to his equipment in the corner of the room, putting on his best smile. It was the best he could do to hide just how friggin' bored he was. "Alright, let's give it up for the boss!" _Someone just end my life right now..._

* * *

Hibiki flopped onto the floor of her room, her cell phone clattering out of her hands. "I'm so tired! The first day school was like a hundred explosions in a row! I'm cursed! I'm sure of it!"

"Well, half of the curse comes from you being such a goofball, and the other half is you sticking your nose where it doesn't belong."

"I call it helping others," Hibiki rolled over to face Miku, who was sitting at the desk in the corner of the room. "It's kinda my thing, you know?"

"You're going to have to draw a line someplace. I mean, normal people don't show up ten minutes late to their first day of school to save a cat. And they also don't lend their textbooks on the first day, knowing there'll likely be homework later," Miku said.

"Well, I'll just borrow yours, then!" Hibiki replied with a smile before zipping off to the nearby table where her laptop and a copy of one of her magazines had been left from the day before.

Miku sighed. "You're such a dummy...how Tamori-san puts up with you, I may never know..."

Hibiki ignored her, instead flipping through the magazine to a page that was just about ready to fall out. It depicted an advertisement for Tsubasa Kazanari's new album, her first since the Zwei Wing Catastrophe, set to be released the next day. Tsubasa was still one of her favorite singers, and that was mostly thanks to the backlog of Zwei Wing albums she'd been working her way through since her days in the hospital. "Tsubasa's new CD comes out tomorrow! I'm so excited!"

Miku smiled. Nosy goofball that she was, nothing made her happier than seeing Hibiki happy. "Isn't that why you came here to Lydian? To see her?"

"Well, yeah, but I haven't seen her. I mean, she's famous. I don't expect her to cross paths with little old me, but..." Hibiki took a moment to quickly peek down her shirt. On her chest, the only sign that she'd ever been in any danger at all, was a scar. One of the doctors mentioned it looked like the music symbol "forte."

While it was true Hibiki had been hoping to see Tsubasa because she was famous, there was another reason. When the initial reports on the Zwei Wing Catastrophe came out, it was said that many members of the audience and Kanade Amou, one of the members of Zwei Wing, were killed by the Noise. And yet, with all that she'd seen that day, between Zwei Wing fighting and even Teisuke turning into that armored warrior, she still had to wonder if she'd really seen what she'd seen.

That's why she had to meet Tsubasa, Hibiki reflected, as she climbed into bed with Miku that night. She had to know. If they ever did meet, maybe she'd get some answers from her.

That is, if they ever did meet.

* * *

"Chicken ramen, please."

There was a ramen stand not far from Teisuke's apartment that he liked to frequent after a job. The State of the Company gig had turned out okay for him, and he was happy to actually get paid on-site this time. A lot of people tended to be pretty lax with paying their DJs. Or maybe it was just him, he had a bad habit of not following up on his patrons for money. He had a small chuckle as he took the CD player from two years ago out of his jacket and put it on the table next to him. As much as he ragged on Hibiki for being clueless and naive, he really wasn't much better.

"Hey man. Finally punch out?"

Teisuke looked up to find his roommate, Ryou Taigawa, joining him at the adjacent seat, placing a broad-signal transmitter on the counter with his door. Ryou was a guy maybe a few inches shorter than Teisuke, and his black hair was cut short in the typical style for JSDF reservist. Teisuke was lucky to have Ryou as a friend: they'd been together since high school, and Ryou had been more than happy to let Teisuke crash in his apartment, so long as he helped out with rent whenever he could. A reservist didn't make as much money as an enlisted man, but given the recent spree of Noise attacks, the government couldn't afford to be picky and Ryou was more than happy to take up the task. Someone had to, he reasoned.

"Finally," Teisuke grinned. "But if I heard someone say 'insurance for a better Japan' one more time, I swear I was going to start taking hostages."

"Kinda hazardous for your reputation, don't you think?" Ryou turned to the man behind the counter. "Plain ramen, please."

"It also doesn't that Hibiki's already getting herself into trouble..." Teisuke mumbled.

Ryou smacked Teisuke on the back with a force that almost gave the DJ scoliosis. "Has it ever occurred to you how much of a perv you are for hanging around a fifteen-year-old girl like you do?"

"We're not _that_ far apart in age, you know that!" Teisuke countered. "Besides, someone's gotta help bail that girl out of whatever jam she seems to get into, and it may as well be me..."

"Relax, man, it's cool," Ryou said, putting up his hands as Teisuke's chicken ramen was placed in front of them. As Teisuke blew onto the noodles, Ryou's gaze fell onto the CD player. "You've been holding onto that broken thing since you came out of that stadium two years ago with Hibiki. Has it ever come back on since?"

"Maybe once or twice?" Teisuke shrugged. "I don't know, sometimes I think this thing has a mind of its own. Remember that Noise attack last week in the middle of the night?"

"Yup. Still had to report in the following morning, so plenty of us were pissed off when we came in. Why?"

"Well, as I was making a mad dash out of the apartment for the shelter, I could've sworn I'd seen the thing light up again, just like it did two years ago...and then there was this voice in my head, like last time, too..."

Ryou tilted his head as he slurped up his own ramen. "Didn't the psychiatrist tell you those things were probably just trauma from the Noise attack? People hallucinate stuff when things go crazy like that. I've seen it all the time with other victims during cleanup."

"Yeah. And that's what I always thought, too. But if that's all just a hallucination, then how did Hibiki-chan and I have the same hallucination?"

"I don't know. Stuff's always weird when the Noise are involved...the voice you hear isn't telling you to kill people and do weird art projects with their bodies, is it?"

"No, nothing like that," Teisuke wrinkled his nose. "It's just the same thing, every time. 'Do not deny your power. You must embrace the Gift of Sync.'"

"Hm. Spooky," Ryou grunted. "...you did keep the psychiatrist's number, right?"

Teisuke gave Ryou a light shove, but he knew Ryou meant well. Besides, he probably did have the number lying around the apartment somewhere, calling her for a two-year follow-up wasn't a bad idea by any stretch of the imagination. Teisuke figured he'd get around to that assuming he didn't have any gigs coming up for the rest of the week. Which was more than likely, given how unknown he was right now.

Then Ryou's radio went off. " _Noise detected. Forest area off of Highway 14. First Division is to report in immediately to gauge enemy strength._ "

"Crap. Better go," Ryou said, taking his radio off the table and shoving a handful of yen under the bowl. He promptly started making his way back down the street.

"Good luck saving the world," Teisuke called.

"Against the Noise? Trust me, when they're involved, what I do barely qualifies as saving the world."

Teisuke watched him leave, looking back down at the CD player, still lying inactive on the table. Then, his smartphone buzzed in his pocket. As he pulled it out, sure enough, there was a text message from the Japanese government warning of the Noise appearance in the same area. And then, he looked over at the CD player. It had turned on again. Slowly, Teisuke reached out and picked it up again.

 **Do not deny your gift. You must embrace the Gift of Sync.**

Teisuke immediately put it back down and reached for his smartphone. Maybe that psychiatrist was on his contact list and he hadn't deleted it when he cleaned it out a week ago. He didn't need to be going through this whole voice-in-the-head thing again.

 **Why do you ignore your senses? I am as real as you are.**

Teisuke tried to play it cool as he took the CD player and put it back in his jacket and stuck his yen under the bowl, walking the short distance back to the apartment. He figured he was just tired and some sleep was going to make things all better.

 **I believe your name is Teisuke?**

Teisuke froze in front of the apartment door.

 **Do not be afraid. Go in your home, and I will explain.**

Teisuke promptly unlocked the door and tossed the CD player on the coffee table with the accompanying DJ Sync disc. He went into the kitchen, downed a couple rounds of antacid, and flopped onto the couch.

" **Ready to listen?** "

"Holy-!" Teisuke shot upright and scrambled to the far side of the room. The voice he'd heard in his head had started coming out of the CD player.

" **You have not taken leave of your senses, I assure you. I was merely waiting for the right opportunity to speak with you.** "

"Some opportunity!" Teisuke said. "I was actually thinking my life was normal again!"

" **You bear the Gift of Sync. Normalcy for humans has long since passed you by.** "

"Thank you, Captain Obvious. I figured that out once I started talking to a haunted CD player," Teisuke huffed, folding his arms.

" **Captain Obvious? My name is Coda.** "

"Great, the CD player has a name."

" **Could you not be so flippant? I'm trying to explain things pertinent to you and you treat me as though I am some figment of your imagination.** "

"For all I know, you are," Teisuke said, massaging his eyes. "Look. The last time I heard you, it was two years ago, when I was trying to escape with my friend from getting killed off by unkillable monsters from hell that killed hundreds of people and almost killed us, too. And then there's the whole instance of me turning into this cut-rate superhero and..."

" **You and your friend thought it was just trauma. And I mean your friend at the food stand, not the young girl.** "

"...you seem to know a lot. How did you even know about my conversation with Ryou? And how do you know about Hibiki-chan?"

" **I am more observant than you think. Just because I am silent does not mean I am not aware. What is the phrase humans use? 'I think, therefore I am?'** "

Teisuke groaned, laying back on the couch again. That antacid was taking _forever_ to kick on. "So what are you, then? Are you a ghost? A spirit?"

" **Of a fashion. You may refer to me as a spirit. As I said before, my name is Coda. And I am a spirit in this machine called the Sync Driver. And you, Teisuke Tamori, have a rare and powerful gift among other humans, the Gift of Sync.** "

"Yeah...what is that?" Teisuke looked back at the CD Player.

" **It is said that those who have the Gift of Sync have the ability to unite the world through their Sounds.** "

Teisuke frowned. "That's...not much of an answer."

" **But an answer nonetheless.** "

"Fine...not digging the evasiveness, but whatever," Teisuke sat back up. "What is that you want me to do, Coda?"

" **You cannot let your gift go to waste. You must embrace the Gift of Sync and take up the sword as the warrior of sound to defeat the foes you faced before.** "

Teisuke blinked. What a strange thing for a spirit in a CD player to ask. "You want me to fight the Noise?"

" **Even your friend admits that he, a trained soldier, has no means of harming them. Yet you hold the means to fight in your hands and you do nothing. Surely you would not help him?** "

"Help him how? The last time I tangoed with the Noise with the whole DJ Sync thing, I had backup from two other people, and one of them died saving my ass. What makes you think I could fight them on my own?"

" **You seemed to do well enough on your own the first time. Granted, the first time I was mostly helping you through the motions.** "

"Wait, stop...I was able to fight because you were helping me?" asked Teisuke. It would certainly make sense. He barely knew his ass from his elbow in a fight, and for him to go from that to flying side kicks to wipe out Noise didn't make sense. But add this Coda spirit to the mix, and… "How does that work?"

" **When you don the armor, I have a bit more freedom to act.** "

Teisuke looked down at his hands, his mind going a thousand places a minute. A spirit inside a CD player who clearly knew more about the whole "Gift of Sync" business from two years before than he was letting on, but also knew about fighting Noise and helped him do so? This was starting to get suspiciously into Saturday morning cartoon territory. And yet, could he continue to deny any of it was real if the proof was talking to him from his coffee table?

" **You require additional proof. That's just as well, I suppose. I remember there being Noise somewhere? Go there, and take me with you. You will see with your own eyes the nature of your situation.** "

Teisuke looked down at his cell phone, which was still showing the location of the Noise from the government text alert. He could tell Coda no. There was no reason to go risking his life just because some talking spirit inside a CD player told him to, especially after dodging death the first time. Few people in the world were lucky enough to survive just one attack from the Noise the way he had. Why bother with two just for kicks and giggles?

And yet…

* * *

Ryou, clad in his JSDF fatigues and armed with a machine gun, knew there had to be better ways of spending a Tuesday night than fighting the Noise. At this point, the First Division fighting the Noise was just a formality the government put on. It had been abundantly clear from multiple engagements that the Noise couldn't be harmed by conventional weapons, but here he was, with his fellow reservists and a few tanks that were stationed at the base nearby, uselessly firing bullets into the horde of monsters advancing on them towards the city.

"Stand by RPGs! Fire!"

A few more reservists behind him fired rockets from a couple box missile launchers into the one big Noise, a huge green thing with thin, crab-like arms and a huge rectangular "face," as it were. Ten rockets were fired, and they sailed harmlessly right through the monster and into the forest behind them. A lot of taxpayer money, gone, and nothing to show for it.

"So conventional weapons have no effect at all…!" Ryou's CO said.

"In other news, grass is green," one of Ryou's fellow reservists mumbled.

Teisuke, astride his motorcycle with his helmet on to hide his face, had just arrived in time for the fireworks display, still carrying the Sync Driver with him. He hadn't put it around his waist quite yet, more out of apprehension than curiosity. Ryou had spoken plenty of times about the indestructibility of the Noise. To see it for himself was definitely troubling. Worse still was the fact that he potentially had the means to fight.

 **Now do you understand? This is no dream or trick of the mind. This is the reality you face. But you have the power to change this, to choose a different path.**

Teisuke scrunched up his face. He still wasn't sure about any of this, but at this point, what on earth could he do but at least try? If it worked a second time, then he swore that he'd finish the Noise like he did two years ago, and then check into the nearest insane asylum the first chance he had. He slowly put the Sync Driver back to his waist. At once, the belt wrapped around him.

 **Yes...embrace your gift...take up the sword, mighty warrior of sound, and be the one to unite humanity!**

And then...a song cut through Teisuke's thoughts, followed by the sound of a helicopter, suddenly shooting to the battle. A lone figure leapt out of it as banked away, and Teisuke could've sworn he heard a woman singing. A bright flash of light came from the falling figure, followed by another.

 **A relic? Here?**

"The hell's a relic?" asked Teisuke. Coda didn't answer.

Meanwhile, Tsubasa Kazanari, clad in the same blue and black body suit she'd worn since her days in Zwei Wing, had arrived on the scene, in front of the horde of Noise. The extensions on her ankles extended, forming into a pair of blades as she prepared to engage her old enemy for the umpteenth time.

" _Tsubasa. You are to cooperate with the First Division and observe the enemy's movements._ "

"No need. I can take them myself," Tsubasa replied, her voice calm and flat.

" _Tsubasa!_ "

Tsubasa ignored Genjuro's voice, and instead took up her katana once again. All these Noise, numerous as they were, would fall to her. She immediately dived headlong into the Noise, flipping onto her hands as she spun like a top, slicing through her enemies with her **Wight Slayer** ankle blades. Getting back to her feet, she jumped high into the air, blue blades materializing around her and then following to the ground like raindrops, spearing through her enemies. As the blades of her **Thousand Tears** disappeared into the aether, she turned her attention to the big green Noise. Her katana immediately shifted shape into a more broadsword-esque weapon as she leapt high once again, and swung the weapon once. A blue energy wave followed the sword's motion and shot through the air. The **Azure Flash** cleaved the beast in two and destroyed it in a mighty explosion.

She paused only for a moment on landing as steam came out of her armor briefly, and then she leapt back up into the sky onto the white helicopter, and as quick as she had come, she was gone.

"Well. That happened..." Teisuke said. "Guess we're not needed here anymore..."

Coda didn't reply. In fact, he didn't say anything more the rest of the night. Why, Teisuke didn't know, and couldn't be bothered to ask.

* * *

Lunch was fairly lively at Lydian thanks to the news of the Noise attack finally being released to the public.

"So the JSDF was able to successfully evacuate everyone in the district, and they kept the damage in the city to a minimum, somehow!" Hibiki said around a mouthful of rice.

Miku took out her own smartphone and pulled up the original text alert that had been sent out the night before. "It was actually fairly close..."

Hibiki nodded, still wolfing down rice. Then, she heard it.

"It's Tsubasa Kazanari!"

"She's actually kinda hard to approach because she's such a superstar!"

"She's so elegant, and with her singing, she's actually like the school nightingale!"

Hibiki immediately stood up, trying to find where Tsubasa was. As it turned out, she was passing by the table she and Miku were sitting at that very moment, and the two met each other's gaze. For a moment, nothing happened, as nobody was quite sure what would happen should someone's breathing cut through the silence and tip the scales.

"U-um..." Hibiki's mind was going a thousand different places, hands shaking around her rice and chopsticks. What on earth should she say? Say hello? Say thank you for saving her life? Ask if the whole fight was real? What? She should at least say _something_ , but her brain, in that brief space of time, seemed to have gone on holiday.

Tsubasa said nothing. She merely lifted a finger and pointed at her cheek. Hibiki blinked, wondering what she was doing, and then she followed her gaze. On her cheek were a couple grains of rice, stuck to her mouth. By the time she quickly wiped it away, she'd gone on her way, and she was left standing alone with everyone staring at her.

Needless to say, the rest of the day had been ruined.

"What a waste!" Hibiki said, head against her desk. "Tsubasa-san must think I'm some kind of weirdo!"

"Well, she's not wrong," Miku replied, finishing up her notes from her last class. "It actually describes you to a T."

"Are you going to finish that anytime soon?" Hibiki grumbled.

To her credit, Miku did at least drop the subject in favor of something more up Hibiki's alley. "...oh yeah, Tsubasa's CD is being released today. Though seriously, a CD? In this day and age?"

"Come on, Miku! The CD is a limited edition that's jam-packed full of bonus material! CDs are old, sure, but owning one is like having a status symbol!"

"Well, that's all fine and good," Miku started putting away her notes. "But if it's a limited edition release CD, doesn't that mean there's a chance it's gonna sell out at some point?"

Hibiki's reply caught in her throat. She hadn't thought of that. But with school not out until later, how on earth was she going to get to the CD store downtown before it closed or, heaven forbid, it _did_ sell out!?

* * *

The moment her last class for the day ended, Hibiki took the train from Lydian straight into town and texted Teisuke to come to the first station right away. When she got out of the station, Teisuke was already waiting on his motorcycle with a spare helmet and a rather irked expression on his face.

"You are seriously lucky that I don't have work tonight!" Teisuke said as he drove them both down the street. "Geez, you'll have me do everything for you, won't you?"

"I just don't want to miss out on getting the CD, that's all!" said Hibiki.

"Well, thank your lucky stars there's not that much traffic. You really don't need to get in even more trouble for missing cur...few..." Teisuke trailed off as he raised his visor. He wasn't quite sure, but he swore he saw something that looked like ash flying across his vision as he stopped at a crosswalk.

"Teisuke-kun?" Hibiki asked. Something was wrong. It was quiet. Too quiet. The only sound that seemed to be in the air was the sound of Teisuke's motorcycle.

"Hibiki-chan...whatever you do, don't look to your right." Teisuke said. He didn't want Hibiki to see the piles of ash that had once been people in the laundromat nearby.

Hibiki didn't. She didn't have to. Next to them on the crosswalk was another pile of ash, the remains of another person covering the bicycle they had been riding. And now she could see the ash flying on the breeze past her. There was no denying it now.

"The Noise...they're here."

"I noticed..." Teisuke said. He looked up, and sure enough, there was a soldier Noise up on one of the rooftops. Then another. And another. In the blink of an eye, there was Noise all over the street, looking down at the two humans that had just walked into their trap.

Hibiki gripped Teisuke tighter. "Teisuke-kun..."

Teisuke revved the motorcycle, putting his visor back down. Unlike last time, they had a more reliable means of escape. "Hibiki-chan, whatever you do, don't let go. This is gonna get rough."

"Okay!"

Teisuke immediately hit the throttle, and they took off down the street. The Noise immediately chased after them, globs bouncing after them as the soldiers followed in their wake, turning to flying bullets to try and cut them off. Teisuke weaved through the Noise as they hit the road around them, showering them in asphalt. But they still kept going as they followed the road straight on into the sunset. All they had to do was hit the open road leading onto the highway, and they'd be in the clear-!

A soldier Noise got a lucky shot, hitting too close for Teisuke to dodge. A piece of asphalt about the size of a softball smacked Teisuke clean across the head, and the impact made him turn too hard. The Kawasaki Ninja 10R lost traction with the road and flew out from under them, skidding further down the road as Teisuke and Hibiki slid to a halt on the road. Teisuke shoved himself up, aching from the fall. "Hibiki-chan! Are you okay?"

"I'm fine…!" Hibiki had also gotten up. She'd gotten a lovely case of road rash on her legs, but she was otherwise okay. Suddenly, she heard the sound of a scream, and she immediately ran off to find the source, tossing away her helmet.

"Hibiki-! God, what does it take to get that girl to stop and think!?" Teisuke said, following her.

* * *

Tsubasa made her way into the command center, still dressed in her Lydian uniform. "What's the situation?"

"We've picked up multiple Noise signals in the inner city!"

"We're triangulating their signals now!"

Genjuro Kazanari, still at his station, looked over at Tsubasa. She was tense, but not because of fear. That was more her ready for action. But until they could get a proper fix and where the Noise were and where they were going, they wouldn't be able to deploy her. Times like this made him wish they had a second fighter, just so they could scout the situation. But with Kanade gone and Tsubasa already gone against her orders to observe once already, they couldn't take that risk.

Risk had already claimed one of them. He'd rather not make it two if he could.

Still, that was no reason not to be proactive.

"Access the traffic cameras! See if you can't get a sense of their general direction!"

"Yes, Commander!"

* * *

Hibiki ran down the alley with the young girl she'd heard, trying to outrun the Noise. Teisuke was not far behind. Much like them, the girl had just stumbled onto the street where the Noise were and Hibiki had managed to pull her away before she got turned to ash. Of course, this now meant that there were three of them trying to outrun the Noise. And Noise don't get tired. They finally reached the end of the alley, but found both sides blocked off by the Noise and one of the canals that ran through the city to the sea in front of them. They were trapped.

"Onee-chan!" the girl said, latching onto Hibiki.

"Don't be afraid, we're here with you," Hibiki said.

"Plan B?" asked Teisuke.

Hibiki responded to the question by taking the girl and immediately diving into the canal. Despite the fast current of the canal threatening to sweep them both out to sea, they made it to the other side. As she looked back towards the other side, she found Teisuke hadn't moved. "Teisuke-kun!"

 **You know there is no escape,** Coda said in his mind. **The Noise will continue to chase the three of you until you cannot escape, and you will surely die.**

 _Well, what am I supposed to do, then!?_

 **There is a third option. You must become the warrior of sound again. Only you have the power to fight the Noise and give your friend the chance to escape. She stands a better chance of success if you stand and fight.**

 _And you're certain that I haven't gone insane right now?_

 **You still choose to doubt!? You got proof that what you experienced was real last night! To delude yourself further at this juncture is suicide!**

Teisuke looked from Hibiki to the Noise, and slowly reached into his chest pocket. As stupid as this was, he knew that Coda was right: there was only one surefire way to help Hibiki and the girl escape. He pulled out the CD player and held it out at his waist. Once again, it wrapped around his body. "Hibiki-chan. Take that girl and run. Don't stop running until you get to the shelter."

"Teisuke-kun! You don't have to-" Hibiki shouted.

"Don't worry about me!" Teisuke said, flashing her a smile. "Remember what I said? Don't be afraid of what's behind you! Just keep your eyes on the prize! And know that I've always got your back!" He opened the tray and took out the DJ Sync CD. Looking back towards the Noise, he breathed in and then breathed out, his eyes hardened. "Let's see if what happened two years ago really was just a dream…!"

 **ARE YOU READY?**

He placed the CD in the tray, and made the spinning motion once again. "HENSHIN!"

 **HANDS UP! GET YOUR HANDS UP!**

The Noise retreated slightly, and Hibiki and the girl shielded their eyes as the blue soundwaves shot out and obscured their vision of him.

 **1! 2! 1, 2, 3, 4!**

And in a flash of light, Teisuke was gone and in his place was DJ Sync.

 **DJ SYNC! ON AIR!**

"Teisuke-kun…!" Hibiki breathed.

"Onee-chan, he changed!" the girl said.

"Well, I'll be damned..." Sync rubbed his hands together before raising his fists to fight the horde of Noise that seemed to surround him on both sides. "Now then...let's dance, you and I!"

Hibiki clenched her fists. If Teisuke really was Sync, then...it really wasn't a dream. The fight, the scar, Zwei Wing, it was all real. And now Teisuke was fighting a whole horde of Noise without Zwei Wing to help him. Was it possible he would survive this time? She wouldn't be able to take it if he didn't!

"Teisuke-kun!" she shouted. "Don't give up on living!"

Sync blinked. She actually remembered that? When Kanade said that, she was unconscious with blood everywhere and debris in her chest. Nonetheless, he flashed her a thumbs-up to acknowledge the statement, and then stomped his foot. A blue shockwave blew the Noise in all direction, and he immediately dived onto the first Noise he saw with a punch. Hibiki took that as her cue, and picked the girl up onto her back, running in the opposite direction to safety.

* * *

"We've got a new energy reading in the inner city!"

"Noise?" asked Genjuro.

"No! It's also not a relic reading, either, but it's really close!"

"We've still got visuals through traffic cameras, right? See if you can't find that source through them!" Genjuro said.

"Roger!"

"Pinpointing source! Cross-referencing with local traffic cameras and...visual obtained! Coming up on the main screen now!"

Tsubasa's eyes widened as the screen showed a familiar face out on the street, trying to fight off a horde of Noise by himself. Between the soldiers that tried to rush him only to run into his fists and the globs that got blown away by soundwaves, she saw the same armored figure. The same figure with pixelated bug eyes and headphones from...that horrible day. "It's him...DJ Sync…!"

"The fighter from two years ago?" asked Genjuro. He'd heard about him, if only through the post-combat debriefing. This was his first time actually seeing the man in question.

"With a look like that, I'd say he's more like a masked vigilante!" Ryoko said. "Like a rider of justice!"

Tsubasa rolled her eyes, knowing what Ryoko _really_ wanted to say but didn't. Still, the fact that DJ Sync was even here after vanishing for two years…well, she wasn't superstitious, but Tsubasa knew a sign when she saw one. The question was, was his appearance a good sign? Or a bad one?

* * *

" _Down the...river...to the...delta…around that final...bend..._ "

It was well past sunset, and Hibiki was still running. Hibiki wondered if this was what Miku used to do all the time when she was on the track team back in middle school. Then again, Miku wasn't running for her life with a girl half her size on her back. She hoped Teisuke was still okay, wherever he was. There was a lot a Noise back there.

" _Flash and...me...above the great green...sea...'til we got to go –_ uwah!"

Her legs finally gave out, and they fell to the ground. As Hibiki gasped for air in a desperate attempt to reclaim her energy, she happened to spot something in the distance behind her.

The Noise.

Fear gripped Hibiki and adrenaline made her heart race even faster. They'd followed her all this way? Either there was more Noise than what they had already seen, or...no! There was nothing to suggest Teisuke was dead! But even as the thought of one of her few friends getting turned to ash flashed through her mind, so did another thought.

 _You can't give up on living!_

Kanade's words, seemingly across time and space, galvanized Hibiki to further action. She had to live! Teisuke was fighting for her! Miku was waiting for her! No matter what, she had to live, and save this girl from the Noise. She picked herself up, grabbed the girl once again, and kept running down the road.

" _And we go...across the meadow...through the rapids..._ "

* * *

Sync smacked away another glob Noise with his foot, turning it to ash, then fell to one knee, breathing hard into his helmet. He'd lost track of how much time he'd been fighting, but he figured Hibiki should've found shelter with that girl by now. If not...no, no time to be thinking about that. Hibiki was a clueless, naive kid, but she wasn't stupid. Usually. The only problem was, even if she survived, he probably wouldn't. There was just way too many Noise for him to fight alone. Sooner or later, the sheer numbers would overwhelm him. All Sync could do now was just pray that Hibiki had gotten away safely before he met the same fate as-

 _Teisuke-kun! Don't give up on living!_

Sync gritted his teeth and forced himself back to his feet. Hibiki didn't give up, even when all the signs pointed to her dying two years ago. Giving up now was just going to make him look bad next to her. Even if he was going to die, he couldn't leave all these Noise just littering the street. He wanted to take as many of these guys with him as he could.

He still hadn't used the finisher technique from the last time. The kick, however, was probably better served taking out one target. What he needed now was to take out multiple enemies in one go. Could he use the soundwave thing the same way? He took the table from his belt, attached it to the buckle, and gave it a spin.

 **BREAK IT DOWN!**

 **(BGM: Excite by Daichi Miura)**

A new song began, but this time, the ports had opened up on his arm instead. Good start. He raised his fists once again. "Come on! Let's wrap this up!"

Two soldier Noise immediately charged, trying to impale him. He spread his arms, shoving them away even as his arms burned. Two more glob Noise tried to jump on him for the follow up, but he ducked under them, kicking one into the wall before jumping away, trying to maintain his distance as energy gathered in his hands. A soldier Noise attempted to flank him, but he punched through the monster and destroyed it. Then, with a roar, Sync brought his fist down onto the street.

The explosion of sound that followed was definitely bigger than the usual ones, and it flew through the Noise and cracked the road under him. They instantly crumbled and turned to ash, leaving him alone on the street with nothing but ash around him. If there were any more of them, Sync couldn't see them. Mission accomplished.

Now he just had to find Hibiki and her friend. The question was, how was he going to pick up their trail…?

* * *

Night had finally fallen, and Hibiki was still running. She'd managed to reach the drug factory near the bay, and thankfully the gate was open. She continued to carry her friend as she jumped across pipes and made her way up to the roof one of the supply warehouses. She'd even taken off her jacket to help keep her friend from falling should she let go of her shoulders, even as she climbed the ladder to what hopefully was safety. The Noise did eventually self-destruct at some point, hopefully she'd bought enough time for that and someone would come to pick them up. Hopefully Teisuke.

As she lay on the roof, happy for a reprieve at last, she couldn't help but think about the Zwei Wing Catastrophe again. She was certain that red-haired warrior had saved her life that day. Teisuke, too, but somehow it was her that was sticking out in her mind. _She saved me by singing that gentle, but powerful song…_

"Are we gonna die?" the girl asked.

Hibiki pushed herself up and shook her head with a smile. There was no way the Noise would've been able to chase them this far and this long, and Teisuke should've been able to thin out the horde at the very least. It was pretty safe to assume they had managed to escape death (twice in two years, in Hibiki's case).

But there was this thing called Murphy's Law. And it loved to rear its ugly head. As Hibiki turned back to look out at the sea, her eyes widened.

The Noise had followed them to the roof.

The girl quickly leaped into Hibiki's arms as they slowly advanced. Hibiki took the girl in her arms, but she was too exhausted to make another attempt at escaping. And there was no Zwei Wing or Teisuke to bail her out. Trapped again, and this time it might actually stick. And yet, Hibiki's mind was racing for a plan, or maybe a prayer for a miracle.

She had to live. But how?

 _There has to be something…_

 _There has to be something I can do…!_

"No matter what happens…!" Hibiki said, trying to channel Teisuke's bravery for herself. "Don't give up on living!"

And in that moment of defiance in the face of death, she felt a song well up in her. It wasn't any song she knew, but the words appeared in her brain, and her voice responded.

" _Balwisyall nescell Gungnir tron..._ "

And something inside Hibiki's chest blazed to life, summoning a bright orange beacon that reached high into the heavens, to the shock of Hibiki, the girl, and even the Noise, sharing a similar reaction to when Sync appeared.

And then she screamed, energy pouring out of her body as she felt something in her body change in a way she didn't know how. Her school uniform blew right off her body, and was replaced with an orange and white body suit. Machinery sprouted out of her back like ersatz wings before it finally settled into a pair of gauntlets and greaves, and a head protector kind of like earphones appeared on her head.

* * *

"We've managed to focus the signals! The Noise have been located at the drug factory near the bay!"

"We're also detecting another powerful signal with the Noise as well!"

"Compare it to the records!" Genjuro ordered. "Quickly now!"

Ryoko was already on it, fingers flying across the keyboard. And she immediately noticed something familiar about the signal. "Is this...an Aufwachen wave?"

Genjuro actually started, something one didn't typically see out of the unflappable commander. An Aufwachen wave was a special wave that typically only appeared when a relic was awakened. And those times they appeared, he could count on one hand. "Give me specifics! Which relic is it!?"

"It's...oh my," Ryoko said, quickly hitting a few more keys. And the main screen displayed a single word.

Gungnir. And it was promptly followed by an image of Hibiki in her body suit, courtesy of a drone they had in the air over the area.

"Gungnir!?" Genjuro actively stood up in surprise. "Is she actually an Attuned!?"

The only one more surprised than Genjuro was Tsubasa. Gungnir? The only one who had ever had that relic was…and yet, here it was, two years later, with DJ Sync, the warrior who had fought alongside her that day. The feeling of deja vu was suddenly replaced with a sudden hardness and maybe just a hint of anger. She had to see this for herself. She would not believe it unless she saw with her own eyes. "I'm heading out!"

"Tsubasa!" Genjuro turned around. Tsubasa halted, staring at her commander with a look that probably could've curdled milk. "Hold on a minute. Sakuya! Aoi! Are you still tracking DJ Sync?"

"Yes sir! He's taken off his armor somehow, but we're still tracking him on the traffic cameras!"

Genjuro nodded and grinned. "Take the motorcycle and pick him up on your way there. And try to be quick with it!"

Tsubasa nodded and was immediately out the door. Genjuro sighed, scratching at his head. "Hopefully DJ Sync will try to reign her in..."

* * *

Teisuke had been running down the empty streets for hours, as he'd been unable to find his motorcycle. His body was crying out for rest, and at this point trying to find a shelter that they could've ducked into was becoming a fool's errand. But, he hadn't found any indication they'd been killed by the Noise, so that was a good sign. He hoped. He'd just turned the corner on the main street, headed towards the industrial district, when he saw the massive orange light shoot up into the sky. "What in the..."

" **This feeling...I've felt it before,** " Coda said. " **But in how long, I don't remember...** "

A motorcycle suddenly pulled up next to him. And astride it was none other than Tsubasa, dressed in a black riding suit, black boots, and an orange jacket. "You! DJ Sync!"

Teisuke blinked and turned around. And when he did, he tilted his head, slowly pointing at Tsubasa. "I remember you..."

"Shut up and get on," Tsubasa countered, tossing him a helmet. "And if I sense your hands going somewhere they _really_ shouldn't be, I'm going to throw you off."

Teisuke actually gave an undignified squeak and put on the helmet. "Yes ma'am!"

* * *

Hibiki looked down at herself and the armor that had appeared on her body. "What...what did I just turn into!?"

"You look awesome, onee-chan!" The girl said.

Hibiki blinked, not sure why she seemed so happy to see her change into...whatever this was, although it did look, if not feel, vaguely familiar. Almost by instinct, she began to sing as she took the girl by the hand and picked her up, ready for another round of Chase the Humans Across Town. Hibiki didn't have the foggiest idea what was going on, but she knew saving this girl was first and foremost in her mind.

She jumped. And somehow flew a good thirty feet through the air away the Noise. But, Hibiki also had jumped in a random direction, so she was also falling probably the same distance through the air. With seconds to spare, she flipped her body in mid-air and landed on her feet without a scratch on either her or the girl. This was getting kinda weird.

The Noise followed her off the building, diving on her in a massive wave of death. She immediately jumped backward, still singing, but against misjudged the strength she now had and flew back another twenty feet and tripped on landing. But even as she fell to the ground, she still kept the girl safe. The Noise tried to attack her the same way they did when she was with Teisuke, throwing their bodies like bullets at her, but she jumped clear once again.

And promptly crashed into a nearby silo, creating a crater in the metal wall. She grabbed a nearby rail, hanging on while still singing this song from nowhere. Looking to her left, she saw the massive green Noise just standing next to her. As it took its pincer arm and tried to crush her into the silo wall, she leapt clear, landing neatly on the ground.

One enterprising glob Noise tried to jump on her from behind, but Hibiki was ready for it. She clenched a fist and swung it into the body of the monster. It promptly turned to ash and exploded under her strike, just like Teisuke. And Zwei Wing. This whole night had suddenly taken a turn at Fourth and Bananas. "Did I...did I seriously just do that?"

A motorcycle cut through Hibiki's song and thoughts, sending glob Noise flying every which way as it came barreling into the fray.

"Are you crazy!? You're not actually going to drive this into the back of the big guy, are you?"

"Ground's right there if you want to get off!"

"You are _beyond_ insane!"

Hibiki blinked. Did she hear Teisuke just now? Sure enough, Teisuke Tamori flung himself off the motorcycle while its blue-haired driver drove on past her, landing hard on his side. Meanwhile, Tsubasa continued to gun the motorcycle right at the behemoth Noise, leaping off at the last second while it crashed and exploded in flames. She flew through the air like only a trained fighter like her could and landed neatly on her feet in front of Hibiki.

"Don't space out! That'll get you killed!" Tsubasa said.

"Yeah, I'm fine, thanks for asking…!" groaned Teisuke from the ground.

"Teisuke-kun!" Hibiki said happily, taking a moment to help her friend up off the ground. "You're alive!"

"So are you!" said Teisuke. And then he happened to see what she was wearing, and he added, "What's with the getup?"

"This? I...It's a long story," Hibiki sighed.

"You two protect the girl!" Tsubasa said. And she promptly ran off into the horde of Noise once again, singing a single line. " _Imyuteus Ame no Habakiri tron..._ "

And just like Hibiki before her, her clothes blasted off her body, and it was replaced with the blue and black body suit she wore against the Noise from the night before with a song on her lips. Hibiki and Teisuke could only watch.

"Tsubasa…?" Hibiki asked.

"That woman is crazy, I swear..." grumbled Teisuke, rubbing at his hip. "Geez, I hurt everywhere..."

Tsubasa, like before, was a veritable hurricane against the Noise. She immediately opened with **Azure Flash** , clearing out the front line of Noise with a massive wave of energy. Then she launched into the air, firing her **Thousand Tears** into the exposed horde. Noise continued to fall as she kicked and sliced her way through with her katana and her leg blades, leaving Hibiki and Teisuke amazed.

And then a shadow fell over them.

"Onee-chan!" the girl said, pointing up.

Hibiki looked up, and the behemoth Noise had somehow snuck past Tsubasa and was looming over them. Teisuke prepared his Sync Driver, even though he was probably in no condition for a second round of fighting. But then, a flash of light appeared in the sky, and a sword easily the size of any of the buildings around them speared the beast through its head. And standing atop that sword was Tsubasa, looking as cool and unflappable as any hero deserved to be.

"Okay. Credit where it's due: that's actually kinda cool," said Teisuke.

* * *

 **END TRACK 02**

 _ **Sync Discs: DJ Sync**_


	4. Track 03

**Track 03: Heroes of the Song! Enter the Symphogear!**

The JSDF was quick with their response, especially after Genjuro was helpful enough to point them in the right direction. A wall had been erected outside the drug factory to keep inquisitive people (and the press) from getting in, while other squads had been dispatched to the particular stretch of street where the Noise had already struck, using industrial vacuum cleaners to suck up the ash. They would be bagged individually and sent off for DNA identification in order to identify the victims. It wasn't a perfect system, but it was the best the government could do to make sure their families had closure.

Inside the fence, the girl had been snatched up by government agents so they could get her name and story while Hibiki and Teisuke were off to the side. Hibiki was still in her battle suit, and Teisuke was quick to hide the Sync Driver from Tsubasa once she came down and radioed in that the battle was over. Then she went off to do her own thing somewhere and neither of them had seen her since. Coda was also suspiciously quiet, even after Teisuke had tried whispered conversation to see if he could get the spirit/AI/whatever-he-was to to talk.

A female agent approached Hibiki and Teisuke, carrying two steaming cups. "Here. You two look like you could use a warm drink."

Hibiki and Teisuke took their respective cups. Teisuke gave it a cursory sniff to test for something that shouldn't be there. All he got was the smell of hot chocolate. He looked over at Hibiki, and she was already drinking it and didn't appear to have changed at all. He blew on it, and sipped. It was just hot chocolate after all.

"Some night this has been," Teisuke said, trying to fill in the silence that followed. "I hope one of these guys is willing to offer us rides home, because I was never able to find my motorcycle after we crashed." Still more silence. "...you're not even listening to me, are you?"

"Mm?" Hibiki asked around her cup.

Teisuke rolled his eyes, taking another sip of hot chocolate. "Whatever. We'll figure that part out some other time."

Hibiki suddenly began to glow bright orange again, and after a moment she had transformed back into her Lydian uniform. The shock of her transformation made her stumble and fall backwards, her hot chocolate falling out of her hands. Teisuke reached out to catch her, but someone else was faster to catch her: Tsubasa, also back in her school uniform.

"Thank you!" said Hibiki, taking a bow.

"Nice save," Teisuke mumbled around another sip.

Tsubasa said nothing, she just gave Hibiki a look of something Teisuke couldn't quite identify. It seemed like somewhere between disdain and a condescending "oh you poor thing." She immediately turned around and started walking away.

"This is the...I think second time you saved me!" Hibiki added.

Tsubasa stopped, looking back at her underclassman. "Second?" Hibiki said nothing, just grinning that silly grin she often had on her face.

"Mommy!"

"Oh look, happy endings for everyone," Teisuke mumbled, watching as the young girl and her mother were finally reunited.

"You're not happy?" asked Hibiki.

"Oh, I am. But it's also been a very long, eventful evening. I just want to go home, get in bed, and fall asleep before Ryou gets back and starts asking questions about how he beat me home," Teisuke replied. The last thing he needed was for some other JSDF guy mention something about him or Hibiki and suddenly be put in a presser by him. Then, an agent came forward with a clipboard and started talking about what sounded like a long disclaimer that was going to lead into some kind of NDA.

"I guess we better get going, too," said Hibiki. Apparently she'd had the same thought Teisuke did and was not relishing the idea of having to stick around for the same lecture.

"Yeah, about that transportation…?" Teisuke said, looking up. They were suddenly surrounded by a group of suited men in sunglasses, led by Tsubasa. "No? ...okay fine."

"We can't just let either of you leave, DJ Sync," Tsubasa said.

"Why?" asked Hibiki.

"You two are to accompany us to the Mobile Disaster Relief Corps, Second Division," Tsubasa said.

One of the agents, brown-haired but not wearing sunglasses, then slapped a pair of large handcuffs shaped like a pair of nuts on the both of them. "We'll be taking the two of you into custody."

"We're under arrest!?" Hibiki asked. Once again, the night had taken a turn on Fourth and Bananas.

"On what charge!?" Teisuke added.

"Classified information," the agent replied. He did seem apologetic about the whole thing, judging by his face, but there didn't seem to be any kind of room for negotiation. And so, Hibiki and Teisuke were put in the back of a car and driven off back towards the way they'd come. After an hour of driving with nobody answering questions either of them had, they finally reached their destination.

Lydian Private Music Academy.

"...Hibiki, isn't this…?" Teisuke began.

"Yeah, but...why would we be taken here?" Hibiki asked. Teisuke merely shrugged, and Tsubasa said nothing. They were led by the brown-haired agent and Tsubasa into the school and towards the center building, where Hibiki assumed the teachers all lived, but then they came to an elevator that looked out of place with the rest of the décor.

The agent held out what looked like a cell phone to something inside, and it beeped after a second or two. A pair of handles appeared on either side of the car. Tsubasa took one while the agent led Hibiki and Teisuke to one. "You might want to hold on. This elevator system is quite fast."

Teisuke and Hibiki shared a look before the elevator suddenly dropped like a stone, earning a scream out of Hibiki. Realizing the reaction had earned a couple of looks from Teisuke and Tsubasa (although the former was holding on to his rail rather tightly), she gave a nervous laugh.

"Don't expect that smile to save you." Tsubasa said, still as emotionless as ever.

Hibiki promptly fell silent, and Teisuke gave Tsubasa an irritated look. Whatever was bringing this on, she needed to lose it before Teisuke took her to task over it. Then, the gray walls of the elevator shaft gave way to the sight of something else: a large tunnel going deeper underground. And this tunnel was designed more like an art project gone haywire. It was painted practically every color under the sun, and there were odd glyphs at various intervals along the walls, but whatever they were, Teisuke couldn't begin to identify them. They looked like a little bit of everything.

"Smiles have no place where we're going," Tsubasa added.

Famous last words. The moment they stepped out of the elevator shaft into the waiting lobby, they were treated to a welcoming party set out just for them. And at the head of the applauding congregation was Genjuro himself, wearing a top hat. "We of the Mobile Disaster Relief Corps, Second Division, the guardians of mankind, bid thee welcome!"

Hibki's jaw fell open, not entirely sure what she should be feeling at the moment other than the shock of such a happy group greeting them at the end of such a fraught night.

Teisuke looked over at Tsubasa, trying to fight down the wry grin trying to worm its way onto his face. "What was that about smiles?"

Tsubasa merely massaged the center of her forehead as the agent gave a nervous laugh of his own. She'd had her own idea on how this was supposed to go down, and once again, her uncle had proceeded to blow all of that out of the water.

Ryoko was next to greet the incoming duo, and she scooped up Hibiki in particular as she readied her cell phone for a selfie, of all things. "Come here, you! Put a smile on and let's take a photo for our first day as friends!"

Hibiki quickly pulled herself away. "N-no way! How's the picture going to look in the album with me in handcuffs!?"

"Some handcuffs, too," said Teisuke, trying to wave his hands around in them. "Who are these made for, The Incredible Hulk?"

"And for that matter," said Hibiki, pointing up. "How do you even know our names already!? We've never met until now!" Teisuke looked up at where she was pointing, and sure enough, there was a sign that happened to read "Welcome to the 2nd Division, Hibiki Tachibana and Teisuke Tamori!"

"We at the Second Division, or 2Div if you prefer, are a special government organization created using wartime provisions," Genjuro said, whipping out a magic wand. It promptly turned into a bouquet of flowers. "Looking into you two is a cakewalk for pros like us."

"Define pros," Teisuke said, tilting his head.

Genjuro merely held up a piece of paper, and at the top with what looked like a lot of writing was a picture of Teisuke's motorcycle license. "We matched your face from pictures we took on the traffic cameras in town and cross-referenced them with various image databases, and came up thusly: Teisuke Tamori, twenty-two years old, born in Shibuya, works around town as a local DJ for special occasions, and when you were twelve, it was discovered you were allergic to peanuts."

"Please tell me my internet history isn't on there," Teisuke knew he shouldn't say as much, but with all that info, he may as well ask.

"We're not at liberty to discuss that. Though do yourself a favor and wipe it out when you get home tonight," Genjuro said with a wink. Teisuke hung his head, absolutely certain the disdainful glare he was getting from Tsubasa behind him was crisping the hairs on the back of his neck. "As for Hibiki, well, that was even simpler."

Ryoko promptly reappeared, holding up a familiar beige bag. Hibiki looked like she'd been stung. "Hey! That's my bag! What do you mean, professionals, and why were you going through my bag?!"

Tsubasa sighed, finally having had enough. "Ogawa, if you would."

"Of course," Ogawa said. He promptly unlocked the cuffs on Hibiki and Teisuke.

"Thanks," Hibiki said, working life back into her wrists.

"We should be apologizing to the two of you, actually," Ogawa replied. "We're not usually so forceful, but...well, extenuating circumstances."

"Anyway, let me take the time introduce you to our happy band," Genjuro said. "I'm Genjuro Kazanari, the man in charge around these parts."

"And I'm Ryoko Sakurai, the brains of our operation," Ryoko added. "Pleased to meet you both."

"Likewise," Teisuke said as he and Hibiki gave a polite bow in return.

"Anyway, I'll cut right to the chase," Genjuro said. "We brought you here out our invitation because we'd like the two of you to work with us."

"Work with you...how?" Hibiki asked. And then she remembered. The song. The transformation. Wiping out Noise with a single punch. "I have to ask. What happened to me?"

Genjuro and Ryoko shared a look, and then Ryoko nodded and came forward. "Before we get to that, we'll need two things from you. First, we need you two to not say anything about anything going on involving us to anyone. And secondly..." She promptly pulled Hibiki closer to her, a look of something that looked suspiciously like lust on her face. "I'll be needing you to take off your clothes."

Hibiki blanched, but only had time to mouth "help me" at Teisuke before she was dragged off by the scientist.

"I'll be back for Tamori-san once I'm done with her! Don't let him leave, okay?" Ryoko called behind her.

Teisuke promptly started choking on the soda he'd just started drinking. "The hell-!?"

* * *

Hibiki got back to her dorm some thirty minutes later, thoroughly exhausted. Truthfully, she was probably more tired from Ryoko's poking and prodding than the run and the fight against the Noise. And what kind of poking and prodding it was! She was absolutely certain it was bordering on sexual assault. It did make her wonder if Teisuke had suffered similarly under her or...she promptly shook her head and cleared it of thoughts that threatened to get in her head. "I'm home..."

Miku came out to greet her, looking worried. "Hibiki! What took you so long to get home? I thought you'd be back in time for dinner if Tamori-san was driving you!"

"Sorry..." Hibiki groaned, and then flopped onto the floor.

"They said on the news that the Noise showed up again. And downtown, of all places!"

"Yeah, but they're gone now," Hibiki said. After all that she'd been through, and now that she was home and no more interruptions for the rest of the day, she was ready to get into more comfortable clothes and curl up in front of the TV. Speaking of which…

"... _in other entertainment news, Tsubasa Kazanari maybe making the jump to Europe to sign with a new label. Kazanari, one half of the former musical duo Zwei Wing, followed the release of her new single today with a major announcement that she'd been approached my Metro Music, a major label based in England. A spokesperson at Metro Music said they are hoping to introduce her to foreign markets, leaving music lovers stunned..._ "

Hibiki's exhaustion suddenly left her as she started from the news. Tsubasa was leaving? Unfortunately, that was the end of the segment, and she spent the rest of the night in front of the TV until Hibiki and Miku went back to bed. And even then, the events of the night continued to gnaw at her. "Miku…."

"Yes?"

She then remembered what Ryoko told her. Miku couldn't know. She probably wouldn't believe her, anyway. Stupid curse. "...never mind."

"Well, I mind," Miku said. "I was so worried about you when you didn't come home. I thought...well, I thought maybe the Noise got you or something."

Hibiki didn't say anything. She couldn't. After all, Miku was right. The Noise almost did kill her and that little girl and Teisuke. Sure, everything worked out in the end, somehow (and that was leaving out the whole 2Div thing afterward), but what if it hadn't?

"I'm sorry...and thank you," Hibiki mumbled. "You'd probably be the only one who'd miss me if I did die, anyway."

"What about Tamori-san?" Miku asked wryly.

"...well, him, too, but you're special, Miku," Suddenly, Hibiki's arms stretched out and pulled Miku even closer. "Lend me your warmth…!"

"Geez, what is with you today?" Miku asked. But internally, their closeness in their bed just made it all the warmer and happier for her.

"Miku Kohinata is the sunbeam that warms me up on a cold night..." Hibiki said. She sounded half-asleep due to the way that her words were slurring together. "Always has been, always will."

Miku flushed, trying to find something to say. Frankly, there were a couple of words she'd wanted to say to her for a long time. And if there was ever a chance to say it, or at least as far as dramatic flair dictated, it was now.

"Hibiki..." Miku turned over slightly, only to find Hibiki had fallen asleep. Miku smiled to herself, patted her friend on the head, and went back to sleep as well. "Sleep well…."

* * *

Teisuke was promptly driven home by Ogawa after his examination. Ryoko was definitely thorough to say the least, trying to find things that he didn't even know were actual things a scientist or doctor would look for. And what with Tsubasa and her battle armor (which was rather similar to Hibiki's, and Kanade's from the Catastrophe as well) and her connection to this mysterious 2Div, Teisuke had the distinct feeling this is what it was like to fall down the rabbit hole.

 _Mental note: check for aluminum foil later._

"I'm home!" Teisuke said, entering the apartment. Nothing. No sign of Ryou, and Coda was still silent. Did he actually beat Ryou home somehow? Lucky day for him-

"Dude! Where were you!?"

"Goddamn Murphy's Law-" Teisuke groaned as Ryou suddenly turned on a light in the living room. "Ryou, what the hell?"

"You said you were going with Hibiki-san to go pick up some CD, right?" Ryou said. He did not sound pleased at all. "Headed downtown? As in 'downtown, where the Noise attacked and wiped out an entire city block!?'"

"What does it matter? Noise are gone, Hibiki-chan's back at school, I'm back home, God is in his heaven, all is right with the world," Teisuke replied. "I need a shower."

"You could've at least shot me a text," Ryou huffed as Teisuke went into his room. "I just wanted to make sure you and Hibiki found a shelter. I mean, imagine me walking down the street and I see two piles of ash next to your motorcycle, left alone on the street."

Teisuke paused as he put the Sync Driver on the desk next to his computer. A very vivid image appeared in his head describing that scenario. He promptly shook it away. "Fair point, but am I supposed to believe that a reservist actively carries his phone on him? Because I don't think that's standard procedure for the JSDF."

"It'd be a nice gift in my locker once I got back to base, anyway," Ryou said. "Speaking of which, where is your motorcycle? I didn't hear it when you came in."

Teisuke froze. Trust Ryou to know that he hadn't driven his motorcycle back. He quickly spun up a lie on the spot. "Transmission on the bike crapped out. Had to Super a ride for me and Hibiki to take her back."

"Oh. Ouch," Ryou said.

"Look, it's been a crazy night, I just want to sleep. And a shower also helps," Teisuke said. But as he grabbed his towel off the rung hanging from the back of his door, a thought suddenly struck him. "Ryou? Can I ask you something?"

"Shoot."

"If someone had a weapon that could defeat the Noise, but they kept it secret until now, what would your reaction be?"

Ryou considered it as he went back into his bedroom across from Teisuke's. The truth of the matter was, the JSDF kinda did. It was mostly in the form of that blue-haired girl that kept showing up when the Noise attacked. When she did, the Noise usually had no chance in hell. Thing was, she only showed up on her own, attacked on her own, and left on her own. Anybody who asked why or who was promptly given orders from the higher-ups along the lines of "shut up and get back to vacuuming." Ryou wasn't sure if that qualified under Teisuke's question, but the higher-ups tended to frown upon people talking about combat operations in general. No point in causing any more of a panic than there needed to be.

But even so...

"Frankly? I'd be pissed. I mean, tons of people have died already. People are still dying now. I mean, if someone was holding onto a weapon to fight one of the greatest killers of man since the plagues for some reason, I'd be like, 'screw your secrets! Give it over or I'll take it off your corpse!'"

Teisuke hoped Ryou didn't see him wince at that as he ducked into the bathroom. "Don't really care about explanations?"

"Depends, really. But my reasoning is 'why would you want to keep it secret?' The government's already up to its ears in work and chaos because of the national state of emergency. We've been fighting these guys for twelve years and the best strategy we have is to bravely run away and hope no one dies. I mean, there's bound to be government offices that deal with that kind of thing, right?'

 _Well, I guess 2Div kinda counts,_ Teisuke thought as he took off his clothes. Aloud, he said, "I guess so."

"If you don't mind me asking, Teisuke, why do you ask? Are you holding onto a weapon that could potentially save us from the Noise and haven't told anyone?"

"No," Teisuke lied.

Ryou chuckled. "Fair enough. It is kinda stupid, if you think about it, though. I mean, who wouldn't want to show off this theoretical anti-Noise weapon? They'd be national heroes!"

Teisuke turned on the shower. His reply was hollow as he tried not to take his friend's words too seriously. "Yeah. Really stupid."

* * *

Tsubasa, like Teisuke, was also in the shower, trying to wash away the thoughts of the evening. But while Teisuke was trying to hold back guilt, she was holding back something else.

Rage.

She leaned against the wall of her shower, trying to keep herself from screaming as the water ran down her hair and her back. And it was all because of that girl. Bad enough DJ Sync had come back, but that girl from the stadium had come back, too. And worse still, she was wearing Kanade's armor! How on earth did she get her hands on the relic, anyway!?

Worst of all, nobody seemed to be treating this with any kind of weight or gravity that it needed. A long-thought lost relic, Gungnir, had reappeared in the hands of a girl who, despite her apparently stellar luck to have survived an encounter with the Noise twice now, was otherwise normal. And a bit of a weirdo. And yet everyone was treating this as some kind of homecoming!

Tsubasa resisted the urge to punch the wall in her frustration. She was a blade. A blade showed no emotion. A blade was only meant for the Noise that had robbed her of the one friend she'd had in life.

But the whole thing was an insult. An insult to her, and to Kanade's memory.

That gear belonged to Kanade!

* * *

The next day had started relatively normal, though people were talking about the Noise attack before homeroom started. And because Hibiki had gotten back late, her teacher caught her napping at her desk and snapped at her again. And then, somehow, a text had appeared on her phone that she wasn't expecting.

 _Ryoko here! We've got the results from our little session last night! We'll be sending Tsubasa to pick up you and Tamori-san after school today!_

And didn't find particularly welcome, considering who was sending it. Did she pick up her number when she found her cell phone in her back? At least she'd be getting the answers she'd been wanting since last night.

"Bikki!" Hibiki looked up from her half-finished notes to see Miku and three of her other friends next to her. "We're headed to Flower after school! You wanna come?"

"...Flower?" asked Hibiki.

"It's an okonomiyaki shop near the train station on north side! We've been hearing good things about it!"

Hibiki laughed. "Sorry guys, something else is tying me up right now."

"You're being held after school again? Geez, your life really is some anime, isn't it."

"Just make sure you come with us next time!" With that, they all headed towards the door, although Miku was clearly saddened by Hibiki's answer. Her sad face continued to gnaw at Hibiki even as the rest of the students took off for the day, leaving her alone in the classroom.

Hibiki sighed. "I knew it. I'm cursed."

"Only because you keep putting yourself in crazy situations." Hibiki started, looking behind her, only to find Tsubasa and a rather unhappy-looking Teisuke at the door. "Which I have to bail you out of, but whatever. Semantics."

Tsubasa shut up the DJ with a glare. "You'll be coming with me as a primary witness to HQ."

And Hibiki promptly found out why Teisuke didn't look happy: she was slapped with the same pair of blocky handcuffs that Teisuke had on his wrists, the same ones from last night, and dragged to the elevator for another high-speed trip down into the center of the earth. Thankfully, when they were greeted by Ryoko and Genjuro, Ryoko didn't try to molest Hibiki. Instead, they gave them a couple drinks, released them of their handcuffs, and took them to a conference room.

"We've got the results back from your check-up last night!" Ryoko said, bringing up a pair of images on the nearby TV screen. One was of Hibiki, the other of Teisuke. "Now, Teisuke is fine, nothing abnormal to speak of aside from bruises from when you guys crashed. As for Hibiki, aside from the shock of her initial transformation, she's almost perfectly fine!"

"...you said almost," Teisuke said. "Sounds like there's a caveat attached, doc."

"Well, I guess you would be curious about what happened last night instead of this..." Ryoko shrugged.

"Yes!" Hibiki said. "I have to know. What happened to me? What was that power?"

Genjuro looked over at Tsubasa, who was standing next to the door. Tsubasa reached into her blouse and pulled out some kind of pendant hanging around her necklace, colored some kind of maroon color. "Tsubasa here wields the power of the First Relic, Ame no Habakiri."

Teisuke nodded into his drink. "Heavenrend. That'd make for an awesome band name."

"What's a Relic?" asked Hibiki.

"Relics are crystals of ancient technologies spoken of in folklores all over the world," said Genjuro. "They're typically found in ancient ruins, but most of the ones we find don't have any power left because they're so old. Finding any that have power at all is a rare find indeed. Ame no Habakiri, for example, is only the fragment of a sword that was found in an emperor's tomb here in Japan."

"But, when they're exposed to a wave of a certain amplitude, the energy leftover is amplified, like a tuning fork!" Ryoko finished.

"...wave of a certain amplitude?" Hibiki echoed. She really wished Miku was here. If anyone could make sense of this jibberish, it was her.

"Specifically, music," Genjuro nodded. "Relics can be reactivated when a certain song is sung."

"Song...wait, that one time, a song appeared in my head, and then I sang it!" Hibiki said.

"When that energy is amplified, it becomes energy, and then the energy transforms into the anti-Noise armor worn by you and Tsubasa called a Symphogear," Ryoko said.

"But nobody can just activate a Relic by singing a tune!" Tsubasa suddenly snapped from the back.

A brief silence fell in the room as everyone except for Genjuro looked back at Tsubsa. She seemed angry for some reason. Most of the 2Div members in the room could probably guess why, but Teisuke and Hibiki could only share a look. Then Genjuro stood up. "Anyway, we call the few people whose songs can reactivate a Relic an Attuned. Currently, the only two people known to do that are you and Tsubasa."

"Well? Does that answer any of your questions?" Ryoko asked. "Don't be shy, now's the time you ask!"

"Well..."

"Go for it, Hibiki!"

"...I have no idea what you just said," Hibiki said lamely.

"Ayup," said one of the operators nearby.

"Told you," said another.

"Fair enough. That's a lot of big words to take in all at once, anyhow. Just remember, I was the one who created Sakurai Theory, the main reason for the existence of Symphogear!" said Ryoko.

"Maybe it's better to say it like this: you sing, music from the song turns to energy, and energy turns into armor. Better?" Genjuro asked.

"Um...correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't that also require a Relic? I don't think Hibiki has one of those pendant thingies. And I sure don't, so...where does that fit in?" asked Teisuke.

"Ah, but that's where things get interesting!" Ryoko said, motioning at the TV. A new image had appeared: an x-ray of Hibiki's chest, where several small objects were dead center. "Look familiar?"

"Yeah! That's from my chest wound I got two years ago!" Hibiki nodded. "I was there at the stadium with Teisuke-kun!"

Tsubasa perked up, suddenly interested in the conversation again.

"Well, according to the surgeon's report, there were several objects in your heart that were too dangerous to be removed, so they left them in, hoping your heart would be able to survive without it," Ryoko said. "Upon examination, we believe that these objects are fragments from the Third Relic, Gungnir, wielded once upon a time by Kanade Amou, one of our own. You might say she left a parting gift for you!"

Teisuke happened to look away just in time to see Tsubasa's reaction. Tsubasa seemed like she'd seen a ghost. She actually swayed on her feet and stumbled a little, grabbing onto the nearby console to stop herself fainting. She covered her mouth with her other hand, having thrown up a little in her mouth, and then proceeded out the door. Giving Hibiki a pat on the shoulder, Teisuke stood up and went outside as well.

Genjuro watched her leave. Trust Ryoko to break it to her at such an inopportune time. He knew Tsubasa was still grieving the loss of her partner, but he knew there really wasn't a lot more he could do on that front. What he needed to do right now was try to get Hibiki as prepared as she could be with as little time that they had.

"So...I really can't tell anyone about this?" asked Hibiki.

Genjuro focused his attention to that very task. "If word got out you possessed a Symphogear, you'd be a target for international governments the world over. The same goes for your friends, your family, even people who even knew a little about you. They'd all be in grave danger if they knew."

Hibiki's mind flashed to Miku. As much as Hibiki wanted to tell her why her schedule had been changing so much, and more importantly that she was still the best friend she ever had, if she was ever in danger because of her, she'd never forgive herself. What on earth could she do? What on earth _should_ she do?

"This isn't even because we're trying to play James Bond," Genjuro added. "Lives are at stake here. Maybe even humanity itself. Conventional weapons are useless against the Noise. With just a touch, a human being is turned to dust. The only known weapon to have any effect against the Noise is the Symphogear. That's why we have to keep everything to ourselves. That's why you have to keep everything you learned here a secret. That and whatever armor your friend Tamori-san has.

"And so, once again, Hibiki Tachibana, I ask you on behalf of the Mobile Disaster Relief Corps, Second Division, for your cooperation in saving mankind from the Noise."

Hibiki looked down at her feet. It felt like her life had begun rapidly accelerating out of her control. This whole thing was too much! Secret agencies, ancient powers, fighting monsters with weapons that only she could wield…Junko was right, her life _was_ turning into one big anime! And if Teisuke's armor thing wasn't related to this Symphogear, that was just a twist on top of a twist! How was she supposed to take all this?

And yet, there was some part of her that recognized that something had been placed in her hands. Something that only she could do. And something she typically did out of habit anyway. Was it possible that maybe this whole Symphogear business was right up her alley and she didn't have the wherewithal to see it until just now?

"This Symphogear...can I really save people with it?"

Genjuro nodded.

And with that, Hibiki made her decision.

* * *

Teisuke didn't have to go far to find Tsubasa. She was resting against a nearby table with a cup of water next to her. She seemed better, at least physically. "You alright?" Tsubasa didn't even bother turning to look in his direction. "Look, I think it's obvious to a lot of people what your reaction was to Hibiki having those Gungir shards in her. If I didn't have my own power-ups already, I can't say I wouldn't have the same reaction."

"Oh? And what makes you think you know how I feel?" Tsubasa asked.

"Hey now, I was there with Hibiki-chan, too, you know. That day, at the stadium. I saw you two on stage. Music of that quality doesn't come from just any duo, you know," Teisuke folded his arms. "It's obvious that you two were probably just as close off it, too. A musician knows."

Tsubasa rolled her eyes, finally turning to face the DJ. "You're right. But being a musician is not going to save you from the Noise."

Teisuke's eyes narrowed. "What's _that_ supposed to mean?"

"The life of an Attuned is not for the faint of heart. I have been training for this fight since I was eight years old. So what makes you think some weirdo like that girl and a musician like yourself is going to be able to survive in the kind of environment I have been training most of my life for?" Tsubasa asked. "Frankly, I don't think either of you would survive more than a week."

"Now look here you-!" Teisuke began, already spitting fire at the remark, but then Hibiki dashed in from the other room, looking rather happy, and he shoved it back in his throat for later.

"I've made my decision!" she said. "I'm gonna fight, even if I'm still new at this!" Hibiki extended her hand to Tsubasa, who promptly did nothing. Teisuke raised an eyebrow at her, and still nothing happened. "Um...I'd be really..."

Hibiki was rescued from her bumbling by the sound of an alarm. _Red alert. All hands to stations. Red alert. All hands to stations._

"Oh, look! Literally anything else!" Teisuke said, trying to take control of the situation. "Let's see what that's all about!"

The three dashed down the halls back up onto the main bridge (although Tsubasa had to take the lead because she was the only one who knew where it was), and sure enough, Genjuro, Ryoko, and the other two operators had already assumed their positions.

"Energy reading confirmed! The Noise are here!" said Aoi.

"Tell the First Branch we're taking control!" commanded Genjuro. "Do we have a location?"

"Putting it on-screen now...it's on Highway 40, mile marker 2649!"

"That's 200 kilometers from the school!" said Sakuya.

"A little close for comfort..." Genjuro muttered. They'd been getting closer the last couple of years. This was about as close as they'd been in a while. He and Ryoko would have to find a solution to that, but right now they had bigger fish to fry.

"I'm heading out!" Tsubasa was already leaving, eager to fight as much as get away from Teisuke and Hibiki. And then Hibiki was right on her heels.

"Oy! Don't be reckless, Hibiki!" said Genjuro. "You're not ready for this fight yet!"

"I can use this power to help people, right? Only Symphogear can harm the Noise, right? If the answer's yes, then I'm going!" And with that, she was gone.

"She knows the situation's dangerous and she's going to dash in anyway, just because she knows she can help..." Aoi remarked. "She really is a kind-hearted girl, isn't she?"

"Makes you wonder, though…" Genjuro mused, folding his arms. "Tsubasa's been training to fight the Noise since she was a little girl. Hibiki, for all points and purposes, was a normal girl until a couple of hours ago. A girl like that volunteering for a situation as dangerous as this...I'd say it's more twisted than kind-hearted."

"Twisted, huh?" asked Ryoko. "I don't know about you, but I think that describes pretty much everyone in this room."

"You gotta be a little twisted to get into this line of work, if you ask me," Teisuke agreed. "Still, if we're gonna be nuts, no point being stupid about it, too."

"You're not thinking of going out there yourself, are you, Tamori?" asked Genjuro.

"Frankly, between Hibiki and myself, even together, we're not much better than half-assed," Teisuke took the steps towards the elevator. "But at least this way we can look after each other and try not to get in Tsubasa's way. Plus, there's only three people in the world who can fight the Noise and it wouldn't do to send just two when one barely knows their left pinkie from their elbow on this."

"Or an oboe from an elbow," Ryoko piped up from her station, to the groans from Aoi and Sakuya.

Genjuro closed his eyes, musing on the idea, and then nodded, hitting a couple of keys. "Alright. But promise me you're going to be very careful with how you do this."

"Just get me something that'll get there quicker and I'll do what I can," Teisuke nodded back.

Genjuro reached into a small drawer that opened and pulled out a ring of keys, tossing it into Teisuke's hands. "Garage is at the end of the hall, first door on your right. Good luck."

Teisuke looked down at the keys. Especially at the very familiar Lucio keychain hanging from it. "Is this…?"

"GO!" Everyone shouted at him.

"I'm going!"

* * *

Teisuke barreled down the street on his motorcycle, guided by the two operators still waiting back at 2Div headquarters. He was amazed that they had not only found it, but they'd even repaired it and had been holding it since...probably that first day when he lost it in the first place. But even now, after all that had happened, Coda remained stubbornly quiet. He figured that, what with all that he'd heard, he'd have _something_ to say in his head. But nothing. Teisuke pondered for a moment if Coda had somehow disappeared-

 **I'm still here.**

"There you are..." Teisuke grunted, although he was more relieved than he would've liked to have sound. "Thought I was all alone, finally."

 **You know I am always here, right? In this Sync Driver? I merely did not want to make my presence known.**

"More like you've been avoiding me. The last forty-eight hours have been topsy-turvy and you've only just now decided to show up to have any comment on the matter!"

 **I was not avoiding you. I was avoiding them.**

"Them? You mean 2Div? The hell would you want to avoid them for? And furthermore, we'd never even met and I couldn't even avoid them. The hell makes you think you can?"

 **I...I cannot say.** Coda actually sounded resigned this time.

Teisuke's hit the throttle on his motorcycle a little too hard, and the machine roared in protest, diving hard left onto the next freeway junction. "Bullshit!"

 **Do not get temperamental on me! I must be allowed my secrets.**

"No way! Not this time!" Teisuke countered. "Ever since we've met, you've always been this weird, coy ghost...spirit...whatever in a CD player that's brought nothing but chaos upon my life, and I'm the one who's been saddled with all the after-effects while you get to sit around acting like this has nothing to do with you! So you listen and you listen good: if you want me to do this whole Sync thing, you're gonna have to start coming clean, or you may have to start your search for someone else with the Gift of Sync!"

Silence fell. Teisuke blinked, wondering if Coda had actually taken the second option. For a minute, all he could hear was the sound of his motorcycle and the repeated sound of the alert reminding everyone to take cover due to the Noise. "...Coda?"

 **You're right. At this point, I may as well tell you what seems important.**

He sounded resigned again. But, Teisuke it was a good a start as any. "Shoot."

 **The truth of the matter is, I do not trust the ones you call 2Div. My memories are...rather scattered, and I'm having trouble trying to recall a lot of things that have happened beyond our first meeting two years ago. But the one called Ryoko Sakurai in particular gives me an ill feeling. So, to preemptively remove any chance of her or any of the others discovering my identity, I chose to hide my presence.**

"...that's it?" Teisuke asked. "You got a bad feeling from one person and that was enough to make you run and hide?"

 **And you trust her implicitly? Do you trust any of them?**

Teisuke opened his mouth, but nothing came out. Truth of the matter was, he was still debating the same thing. He was only going along with most of it just because, well, they apparently had more dirt on him than the CIA did. And Ryoko did seem a bit _too_ into examining his body the other night…

 **As I expected.**

"...fair enough," Teisuke admitted.

 **I understand your need to have a bit of control in this. But this fight with the Noise will encompass more than you can possibly imagine, and thinking of why when you stare death in the face will only reward you with blood. You must be willing to not ask questions until after the fight has ended.**

"It's still a lot to ask of a guy you only knew two years and a handful of days," Teisuke said.

 **I agree. But know that as long as you fight, I will assist you however I can. Now move quickly. The Noise are not going to wait for us to come to them.**

"Got it."

* * *

Meanwhile, Tsubasa had arrived on the scene first. The Noise had appeared on an overpass headed straight towards Lydian, and she'd already donned her Symphogear for the fight. The Noise, in response, suddenly began to morph. Instead of taking up the form of a large army like many had done previously, they all began to coalesce, reforming into a massive toad-esque monster. Apparently they were thinking they could fight Tsubasa in a one-on-one fight.

Oh, how wrong they'd be.

She immediately dashed off into the fray, weaving around the shards the Noise had fired from its back in an attempt to cut her off. She shot off into the air, ready to finish the beast in one swoop.

"Tsubasa-san!"

And then a familiar orange and black blur shot in from the left, landing a sloppy but powerful kick onto the beast. As Tsubasa flew by, now more irked than focused, she saw that Hibiki had shown up to interrupt. Already, she was falling from the rebound of kicking the Noise from about twenty feet up. And very happy, too. What was _with_ this girl?

She quickly refocused. Noise first. Straighten the weirdo out after.

To her credit, the Noise was thrown off-balance by the surprised attack, and that just made the setup for her finisher easier. The sword in her hands transformed back into zankantou mode, and she swung it downward for another **Azure Flash.** The blade beam sliced the monster clean in half, and it exploded a second later.

" _Noise down! Good job, Tsubasa!_ "

Tsubasa exhaled, ignoring her uncle's words just to empty her mind again. She was a sword. She was meant to do this. Nothing else.

"Tsubasa-san!" And then Hibiki had to come and ruin it. "Sorry, I know I'm probably slowing you down, but I'll do my best! So...please! Let me fight with you!"

Tsubasa said nothing. And then a thought entered her mind. Fight? Well, it seemed things were starting to sort themselves out in a way she could agree with.

"You're right. You and I...should fight." Tsubasa said, returning her sword to its original katana state.

Hibiki stepped back as Tsubasa raised her sword to Hibiki's neck. "N-no! You misunderstood me! I wanted to fight alongside-"

"I know full well what you meant," Tsubasa countered, advancing to keep her sword at Hibiki's neck.

"Then what are you doing?" asked Hibiki.

"I just want to fight you," said Tsubasa, sounding for all the world like she was talking about the weather. "I cannot accept you. Join forces with you? Fight alongside you and your friend, the musician? Hell will freeze over before Tsubasa Kazanari can accept that." She readied the sword properly. "Ready your Armed Gear. It represents your very soul and will to fight against your enemy. If you wish to claim Gungir, you better come to terms with what comes next."

Hibiki heard the words, but she couldn't quite understand everything that was coming out of Tsubasa. More pressing was how she was speaking. This wasn't like Tsubasa at all, or at least what she had in mind for someone like her. She expected someone who was kind, and proper, and something like that would come across in the way she talked. This? This was nothing but malice coming out of her mouth, and what was worrying was that it was directed towards _her._

Granted, Hibiki did have the problem of being a little slow on the uptake.

"What do you mean, come to terms?" Hibiki asked. "I don't even know what you're talking about. How can I come to terms with something I know nothing about?"

"That's the thing, you see," Tsubasa replied, lowering her sword for a moment as she turned back to the remains of the Noise she'd just destroyed, the flames of the explosion lighting up the sky. "You have no determination. You and Sync just treat this all like some funny little game." She turned back around, gripping her sword in both hands. "And you...you have the absolute _gall_ to think you could take Kanade's place!?"

And with that, Tsubasa charged, katana raised for a swing right at the frozen Hibki.

 **ARE YOU READY?**

"Hibiki-chan! Get down!"

Teisuke's shout drove Hibiki to action as she immediately dived to the right to avoid Tsubasa's attack. At the same time, Teisuke himself, the Sync Driver around his waist once again, came flying in on his motorcycle, fishtailing to use the back wheel as a ram. Tsubasa easily jumped away from him, sword ready.

"Don't interfere, Sync!" Tsubasa shouted at him.

"Too late to stop that now," Teisuke said, inserting DJ Sync into the tray. "HENSHIN!"

 **HANDS UP!** **GET YOUR HANDS UP!**

Tsubasa raised Ame no Habikiri, presumably to pick off Hibiki, but instead, she tried to swing the sword onto the Kamen Rider. She was met with the blade striking an energy barrier of sound that actually blew her back a few feet. Meanwhile, Teisuke had finished his transformation into Sync.

 **1! 2!** **1, 2, 3, 4!**

 **DJ SYNC!** **ON AIR!**

"I was perfectly okay with you having a bad attitude before. But attacking Hibiki over your frustrations? That, I can't let slide!" Sync declared.

"And what would you know about my frustrations? I merely judge her and find her unworthy to take Kanade's place," Tsubasa replied.

"If all you do is judge anyone by the shoes your friend left, you're going to be disappointed over and over again," Sync said. "But that's neither here nor there. Stand down, or I will blow that sword out of your hand and beat the ever-living snot out of you with it."

"Do you think you intimidate me, speaking like that?" Tsubasa countered.

"Depends. Are you?" Sync quipped.

Tsubasa's reply was short and swift as she shot forward, swinging her sword in an arc as she brought it down against Sync's upraised arms, sparks flying from the masked warrior's armor. " _No, I'm not._ "

* * *

 **END TRACK 03**

 _ **Sync Discs: DJ Sync**_


	5. Track 04

**Track 04: Phantoms of the Past! The Return of Nehushtan!**

This was seriously not how Genjuro wanted the first day of new friends and allies to go. They'd barely been together more than a handful of hours and they were already fighting each other.

"Well...at least they're not fighting in public?" Ryoko offered, trying to stay lighthearted about the whole thing.

Genjuro rolled his eyes and got out of his seat. "I'm heading out. Keep me posted on how it's going and if the fight gets off the highway. And schedule a meeting tomorrow, because apparently we need to have a _very abrupt_ discussion about team dynamics."

"Take pictures!" Ryoko called as he went out the door.

Meanwhile, Sync and Tsubasa were still fighting. Hibiki wasn't sure how it got to this. She just wanted to help Tsubasa fight the Noise, and somehow it went from her being threatened by Tsubasa to Tsubasa fighting Sync. They were all supposed to be friends, right? Then why was everyone fighting each other!?

Sync was more focused on not trying to get skewered. Sure he had full armor on, but with no weapon of his own, Tsubasa had the range advantage and all he could do was try to fight defensively and counterattack wherever he could. But Tsubasa was way too fast for him. His arms were reaching the breaking point and he was sure there were a few points where that massive sword Tsubasa was fighting with had cut his arms through whatever this armor was made of.

Tsubasa suddenly shrank her blade to katana form and slashed twice, one being a feint for an overhead chop, and the other was a true strike aimed at his knees. Sync fell to the ground to a scream from Hibiki, but he still looked up at his opponent, helmeted face hiding his determined face.

"Do you understand now?" Tsubasa asked. "This is what I was telling you about. You have no soul in your fists. Where is your determination to fight, Sync? Where is hers?" She pointed the katana at Hibiki, who flinched at having the weapon directed at her.

"Tell you what..." Sync asked around his heaves. "Why don't you tell me yours and I'll tell you mine?"

Tsubasa blinked. "And why should I?"

"Well, I would think you know what is what, if you're gonna lecture us on determination and our lack thereof," Teisuke replied, slowly forcing himself to his feet. "So where is yours? Or are you just some robot, who's only doing what she's told because it's all she's ever known? Call us naive all you like, but at least we're capable for thinking for ourselves-shit!"

Tsubasa attempted for a slash across Sync's chest, her expression darkening with actual rage for once. "You know _nothing_ about me!"

"That's our line!" That was the opportunity he needed. Sync charged, turning away from Tsubasa's attack as it rang off his shoulder and he went for a shoulder shove right into Tsubasa's chest. She promptly dodged backward and the attack hit nothing. This was getting nowhere fast. He needed to do something to catch her off-guard, or she was just going to wear him down and finish him off with something he hadn't seen yet.

 **You do have one trick left. Reach out to her with the Gift of Sync.** Coda's voice suddenly appeared in his head again.

 _You want me to what!?_

 **This should not be new to you. It's what you did with the wielder of Gungnir in your first fight.**

 _Oh...but I need to be in contact with her right? At this rate she'll probably kill me before she lets me get that far!_

 **Sacrifices will have to be made on this path, Teisuke.**

 _Easy for you to say! You're not the one risking life and limb here!_

"Time to end this!" Tsubasa came flying in once again, armed with her **One Thousand Tears.** Sync clapped his hands, the blue shockwave scattering most of the swords around him to land on the road. As Tsubasa herself descended with katana in hand, Sync saw it. A chance. He made a quick summation of where Tsubasa was going to land, charged into the blow headlong, and embraced Tsubasa in a hug, blade ringing off his back.

"What the-!?" Tsubasa was completely unprepared for the maneuver. Then came the strange feeling from somewhere she'd never felt before. A heartbeat. Then a third. In sync with each other.

What Teisuke was feeling, however, was something very different. It sounded like a terrible piano vibrato, danger and fear lurking in some oncoming shadow. He could swear there was some other sound in it, a sound that almost reminded him of twinkling stars, but the dissonance they created together made it really hard to pick up on.

Then Tsubasa's armored knee found his stomach, and he was forced to let go. But as Sync righted himself, he caught a strange maroon glow hovering around his hands.

 **Well done. This new power should serve us well. There is a series of blank discs on your belt. Join that energy with one of them.**

Sync, curious more than obedient, proceeded to do so, taking one of the discs Coda mentioned from the left side of his belt. To his amazement, the glow proceeded to leave his hands and enter the disc, which promptly began to spin in its casing. Once the glow had ceased, the blank CD was no more, and a new one was now in his hands.

"Is this...a new disc?" asked Sync. It was a maroon disc with flames and chains on it, and there were three words on it: Raging Star Guardian. He quickly willed his legs to get more distance from Tsubasa, and ejected DJ Sync from the Sync Driver.

 **ARE YOU READY?**

Suddenly, the holographic headphone bridge hovering over his head vanished, his chest plate turned blank, and the green parts of his armor turned white. He took the DJ Sync disc and put it in the empty space on his belt and replaced it with Raging Star Guardian. "Let's see what this does!"

"Like I'll let you-!" Tsubasa immediately charged, ankle blades flying in another **Wight Slayer**. She only ended up running into the same sound barrier as Sync put the disc in his Driver.

 **FEEL THE POWER! SPREAD YOUR WINGS!**

An electric guitar riff played as the white armor now turned the same red as the disc, flames and chains had appeared on his blank chest plate, and a red holographic mane of red hair came out of the top of his head. But what was the most different was the black and red flying-v electric guitar in his hands with a what appeared to be a blade attached to the fretboard.

 **RAGING STAR GUARDIAN! OHHH YEAAAAH...!**

 **(BGM: Lightbringer – Pentakill)**

"He changed again…" breathed Hibiki. And now there was music in the air. But this time it was ominous, like the battle cry of a thousand angry Vikings.

Tsubasa merely scoffed."So you have other tricks, too. But it's not going to change the result of this!" She fired off another **Azure Flash,** but Sync merely strummed a chord off his guitar, and a bright red soundwave met the energy wave, and the two exploded, dealing no damage to either side. "What!?"

"Looks like we're on even footing, finally!" Sync said. He released the guitar and slid a part of the body back, revealing a long handle to grip the guitar like a sword. "Come on! Let's see if that kitchen knife actually has an edge!"

Tsubasa wasn't sure where this cockiness had suddenly shown up out of Sync, but even she couldn't ignore a direct insult to Ame no Habikiri. She immediately charged forward, swinging her sword. Sync met her charge in kind, swinging the guitar-sword.

CLANG!

The two sword-wielders clashed and struggled against each other, Tsubasa trying to get a read on her opponent behind those red bug-eyes and helmet. He was not nearly this strong last time. He wasn't even supposed to have this kind of energy left after the beating he'd already sustained! So why was he suddenly able to fight her on this level!? She quickly disengaged and shot upward, unleashing **Thousand Tears** again.

"Get behind me, Hibiki!" Sync shouted behind him, and as Hibiki scrambled to a position behind Sync, he reformed the guitar from the sword and strummed it again. The blades flew well off-course from the resultant shockwave and even gave the two Symphogear users a shake. Then, he took the Breakdown Table from his belt, attached it to the bridge of the guitar, and gave it a spin.

 **BREAK IT DOWN!**

 **(BGM: Battlefield – Blind Guardian)**

And Sync began to play, a heavy metal tune coming out of speakers that popped out of his shoulders.

 _Don't you hear me crying!? (Crying!?)_

 _Come take me away, I hallow thy name!_

 _There on the battlefield, he stands!_

 _Down on the battlefield, he's lost!_

 _And on the battlefield, it ends!_

Tsubasa took the opportunity to throw her sword into the air for her own finisher. As she leaped high into the air, her foot attached to her sword, and it became the same massive sword she had unleashed on the Noise when Hibiki had first fought them.

 _War and anger shall reign!_

 _The clash of iron can be heard!_

 _By blindness you're driven insane!_

 _I'm lost in anguish and grief!_

As Tsubasa began her descent onto Sync and Hibiki, Sync kept playing, picking up a lot more speed. At this point, Hibiki noticed the blade of the StratoSlasher was starting to glow the same angry red, and the more he played, the larger the glow grew, extending beyond the end of the guitar until it resembled a lightsaber. A very large lightsaber, easily twice the size of them both.

 _Sorrow won't wane until you die!_

 _A shattered body deeply hurt!_

 _And darkness will cover the light!_

 _It's gone forever more!_

And Sync leapt into the air, raising the extended StratoSlasher into the air to bring down on the rapidly-descending Tsubasa and her **Celestial Wrath.**

" _WHAT ARE YOU TWO IDIOTS DOING!?_ "

And Genjuro Kazanari suddenly appeared, right in the spot where Tsubasa and Sync's finishers were most likely to collide. Both sword slash and **Celestial Wrath** came down on his extended fists, but neither seemed to harm him. In fact, with a mighty roar, he actually launched Tsubasa backward through the air and shoved Sync's finisher harmlessly into the ground with enough force to drag him off his feet as well. A nearby water main burst under the asphalt from the explosion, showering everyone in water.

"Goddammit, now I've gone and made a mess," Genjuro sighed. "Blew my new shoes clean off, too."

"Teisuke-kun?" Hibiki helped a de-transformed Teisuke to his feet.

"Careful, watch the arms..." Teisuke grunted. There were a lot of cuts on his arms, some of them deep and even bleeding, but he seemed to be okay.

Genjuro, meanwhile, was going towards Tsubasa. She had fallen to the ground on the other side of the ruined highway. Gone was Ame no Habakiri, and she was back in her Lydian Academy uniform. This wasn't necessarily what he wanted, but it was still far from the worst result that could have come from this whole fiasco. "This is completely unlike you, Tsubasa. What could have possibly-" His lecture stopped when he happened to look down upon his niece properly. "...are you crying?"

"I'm not crying!" Tsubasa shouted. "I am a sword. A sword does not shed tears-!"

Genjuro couldn't be sure if she was lying in attempt to hide her shame, or she was telling the truth and it was just the water main he'd just busted. Either way, he just picked her up on his shoulders and started carrying her back to the car he'd arrived in.

And then, Hibiki just had to go and open her mouth.

"I know I'm useless right now, but I'll do my best. I'll try to replace Kanade!"

And in that moment, for only that moment, Tsubasa's frustration finally gave way. As Genjuro and Tsubasa passed by Hibiki and Teisuke, Tsubasa stopped, turned towards Hibiki, and gave her an open slap across the face. She then carried on back to the car without her uncle, her face wetter than it had been a few minutes ago. Hibiki blinked, wondering what just happened. But when she looked up at Teisuke and Genjuro, Genjuro had no expression on his face and Teisuke just shook his head.

"Hibiki-chan…that was just stupid of you."

* * *

A month passed. And Genjuro was starting to get a little bit peeved with how things had turned out since that fight on the highway.

Most of the battles against the Noise in that time had panned out the same way. Tsubasa, being the only one who was actively trained in combat of the three, did most of the heavy lifting in fights. That was only to be expected. Hibiki, being the complete newbie of the three, was constantly having to run from the larger Noise and even struggled against some of the smaller ones. Which was what everyone figured would happen. Teisuke, having taken up the code-name "Sync" for the time being, was somewhere in the middle. He could at least defend himself better than Hibiki, but it was clear the Sync armor had limits and he was no Tsubasa. He'd already whiffed that finishing kick move on some pretty big Noise once or twice, and Tsubasa had to bail him out.

Genjuro sipped at his coffee (black, as usual), watching a replay of the last fight courtesy of camera recordings from their overhead drones. It was true Hibiki and Teisuke were in desperate need of proper combat training, but what was even more troubling was Tsubasa didn't even seem to care that she was on a team again. She just went off and did her own thing, like always, and that usually meant Teisuke had to pull double-duty of fighting the Noise _and_ baby-sitting Hibiki.

" _Whoa! Yo! Tsubasa-san, watch where you're firing those things! Are you trying to skewer me!?"_

" _Then get out of the open! I don't have time to watch for you and the Noise!"_

" _Or maybe just don't fire without a warning first! You ever think of that!? It's called Heavenrend, not Teisukerend!"_

" _You know that's not what it's called!"_

" _It's close enough!"_

Genjuro shut off the audio. That was another problem: Teisuke and Tsubasa hated each others' guts. He had to wonder if some of that came from that initial incident on the highway. He did agree what Hibiki said at the end was right out, but even so, Teisuke and Tsubasa were arguing constantly, whether about tactics or incidents like that one where nobody was right and they just needed to get back fighting.

He sighed, putting down his mug. "One step forward, two steps back."

* * *

Teisuke was also lost in thought that evening back in his apartment. Ryou was on standby at the JSDF base, so he had the apartment to himself. Currently, the DJ was parked in front of his desktop computer, finger tapping on the (musical) keyboard he had plugged in. He'd been trying to work out his next beat for a couple of hours, but he'd been getting more and more distracted as the night had gone by.

 **A yen for your thoughts?**

Teisuke blinked as Coda's voice came out of the Sync Driver. It had been sitting inactive since he'd gotten back from his last fight with the Noise. "Just one yen? That's not gonna buy you much."

 **I merely use it as turn of phrase. It is a phrase humans use, is it not?**

"Well, yeah, but you're missing context," Teisuke said, minimizing his recording program. "Whatever. Why do you ask?"

 **I've been observing you. You're usually more lively than this, even during the evening hours.**

"Great. My Sync Driver is stalking me," Teisuke snarked.

 **I prefer to think of it as monitoring your condition. Now, what's on your mind?**

"...my teacher once said something about music," said Teisuke. "She said that when a radio turned on, the first song that plays that day is a message to you from God."

 **Oh?** Coda actually sounded intrigued. **What kind of message?**

"It was usually something pertaining to something going on in your life. And that song that played when I used that finisher attack on Tsubasa last month? That can't be simply coincidence."

 **And that has something to do with you?**

"Actually, it has more to do with Tsubasa than me. It's the lyrics. 'Can't you hear me crying?' Call me crazy, but doesn't that kind of speak to Tsubasa's predicament?"

 **Predicament? Well, considering she has to deal with you and the wielder of Gungnir, I'd say it would match her feelings concerning how the last few Noise incursions panned out.**

"Har har," Teisuke deadpanned, spinning around as he leaned back in his chair. "But in all seriousness, it just struck me as a bit on the nose. It's clear Kanade's death still bothers her after all these years, and I'm convinced that's why she attacked Hibiki. To Tsubasa, she's a little kid wearing Kanade's clothes, and it pisses her off."

 **Then that must be the reason her Sound took the form it did.**

"...Sound?" asked Teisuke. "You mentioned that before when we first met. What is a Sound?"

Coda said nothing.

"...well, if you're not going to talk, I guess I could have Ryoko-" Teisuke began.

 **Wait, wait.** Teisuke smirked as Coda shot down the idea instantly. **A Sound is a special kind of sound exhibited by all humans that is unique to them. It is an embodiment of their very being. Emotions. Hopes. Dreams. History. All of these and more come together to form one Sound.**

"...wait, that's it?"

 **Well, not quite. A person's Sound is typically inaudible, except only to a select few. That happens to include you, as you have the Gift of Sync.**

"Like Hibiki's heartbeat at the stadium, and whatever that...thing was when I touched Tsubasa last month?"

 **Yes, though what you experienced then is Sound at its most basic. The true nature of Sound is actually quite complex, and you'll need to learn to focus on it much more to understand its depth properly. But what is most important to this discussion is that Sound can also carry powerful energy. It is through this Sound Energy that you can transform into Sync. What's more, is that the Sync Discs that you use to transform are based on Sounds you have already been exposed to. DJ Sync is based on your Sound, obviously.**

"And Raging Flame Guardian is based on Tsubasa..." said Teisuke, holding up the new disc. "I just never imagined it'd take _this_ form. Power metal is the last thing I'd associate Tsubasa with. Or maybe that's just how she is now and I'm just-" He put the disc down with a bit more force than was probably necessary. It promptly cracked and fell apart in two halves under his hand. "Oh crap."

 **That does not bode well.**

"It's not a very good sign either," Teisuke added. As he spoke, the designs on the disc began to fade away. "I mean, are all my discs this fragile?"

 **No. What you have witnessed is a larger, and much more pressing, problem.** Coda's tone had become a lot more grave. **As I said before, a person's Sound is comprised of a great many things. But it's also amorphous to an extent, allowing them to change in certain ways over time. Such instability is usually normal.**

" _Usually_ normal…?" Teisuke repeated.

 **The reason why that particular disc broke is because the Sound that it took Sound Energy from to create it is particularly unstable. And the only thing that could create such instability is if something is forcefully changing it.**

"Like...grief, maybe?"

 **That, among other things. Whatever is causing this instability in the wielder of Ame no Habakiri, we must discover it and put an end to it before it causes permanent change in her Sound and damage her in the process. It could even potentially draw darker forces to her.**

"Darker forces?" Teisuke asked. "Are you saying that there's something out there that's possibly worse than the freakin' Noise?"

Coda didn't answer.

* * *

Every time Tsubasa meditated with the katana she used to practice with, the one she'd been practicing with since her childhood, dressed in her hakama, she kept revisiting that day. It was as inescapable as sunrise and sunset.

Tsubasa screamed, holding her friend as she fell to the ground and Sync ran away with Hibiki. Kanade's eyes had failed her, as she couldn't see her, or anything. At least, that's what she said. Then she followed up with an apology. This was the last time they would sing together.

"But why?" Tsubasa had asked. "Don't tease me like that, Kanade."

Kanade merely chuckled. _"You always were the sensitive one, Tsubasa."_

And then she said it.

" _Hey, Tsubasa. Did you know that when you sing a lot, you get really hungry?"_

Those were Kanade's last words to her partner before she turned to ash.

Tsubasa rose up from the dojo floor, and drew her katana in a single, fluid, practiced motion. The blade stopped mere centimeters from the lit candle flame before her.

"My weakness failed her. Nothing else."

She sheathed her blade and left the dojo.

So it went every night.

* * *

Hibiki's month hadn't been going much better. Tsubasa aside, Hibiki's taking up of the Symphogear had led to another problem.

Schoolwork.

Hibiki was by no means the best student. If it weren't for Miku helping her out with studying, she probably wouldn't have passed the entrance exam to get into Lydian anyway. But now she had a part-time job of sorts, so her studies were also starting to dip even further. So she had to take up doing extra credit assignments just to make up the deficit. Add to the fact that she was distracted by her fight with Tsubasa, and, well…

Hibiki snorted, sleep threatening to keep her from her goal. Miku peeked over at her from the other side of the table, over her laptop. "Hibiki-chan, you're not going to meet the deadline if you fall asleep. If you hand in that report, you won't have to retake the exam."

Hibiki swayed a little and promptly fell onto her notebook.

"I told you, don't fall asleep!"

"I'm not asleep. I'm just resting my eyes," Hibiki replied, her eyes closing.

And she dreamed of that fight. Of Tsubasa, tears streaming down her face as she smacked her. Of Teisuke, wearing an expression of disappointment. She knew she'd done goofed. She only meant to say some kind of statement of unity, or just some kind of reassurance that she'd get better at this whole Symphogear thing. But, invoking Kanade when the wounds were still clearly fresh had destroyed any attempt at that, probably for a good while. She opened her eyes, guilt still gnawing in her innards.

Tsubasa was crying. Worse still, _she_ was the reason she was crying.

Her cell phone buzzed, telling her of an appointment. A 2Div meeting later that evening. Hibiki rolled her eyes. Of all the things to get in the way, why now?

Miku looked up. "What happened? Did you switch the AM and PM on your alarm again?"

"It's not..." Hibiki lied.

"What on earth could you be doing that requires you to be out late at night?"

Hibiki merely laughed off the question. Miku sighed, leaning back in her chair. "Well, I guess I can cover for your night-time escapades past curfew. Again. Just do me a favor and don't forget about this, okay?" Miku spun her laptop, showing a meteor shower video she'd pulled off of MeTube. "Remember our promise to see shooting stars together someday? Well, the Lyrids are passing through for a week starting tomorrow and we can't go see them if you're drowning in extra homework."

"Yeah, yeah, I know. But this is something I gotta do..."

Miku sighed, not buying it for an instant. Hibiki was a horrible liar, but with no evidence that what she was doing wasn't illegal or dangerous aside from breaking school curfew, she really couldn't press her on the matter. So she stood up, and started trying to help Hibiki as she struggled to get her cardigan off. "Hands up, Hibiki."

"I know you crash and burn if you don't put in any effort." Miku stopped for a moment as Hibiki spoke through her sweater. "And it won't get much better after that.'

Miku had no reply for that. What on earth was Hibiki talking about?

There was another round of buzzing. Hibiki, halfway through changing into her school uniform, quickly snatched her phone off the desk to find a text message from Teisuke announcing he'd arrived already. Why was she always the last one to show up for everything!? Bad enough her bad attendance was already affecting her grades! Nonetheless, Hibiki quickly threw on her jacket and immediately ran out the door. "Should be back soon!"

Little did she know, Miku had caught the text message over Hibiki's shoulder. _Hibiki-chan and Tamori-san? What on earth are they doing together so late at night?_

* * *

"Sorry I'm late!" Hibiki came onto the main bridge. Sure enough, Genjuro was already waiting with Ryoko, Tsubasa, and Teisuke.

"Well, you're here, and that's all we need," said Ryoko. "Anyway, now that we're all here, let's all be friends and talk things over."

Tsubasa said nothing, merely sipping at the tea she'd brought with her. She still didn't meet Hibiki or Teisuke's gaze. Genjuro grabbed a remote and hit a button. The main screen across from them shifted to a map, with several red blips and a large yellow dot in the center.

"Tell me what you make of this map," said Genjuro.

"Lots of blips," observed Hibiki.

"All of them pretty close together," added Teisuke.

"Well, yes. What you're looking at is a map of all the Noise outbreaks have occurred in the last month. What do you know about the Noise, you two?"

"Meh. Not much, aside from the obvious," Teisuke said with a shrug.

"Only what people talk about on TV or in school," said Hibiki. "They're emotionless, mechanical, and only attack humans. People that get attacked by them are turned to ash. They have no pattern to their attacks and they attack indiscriminately. They've been named the number one current threat to mankind."

"You've been doing your homework. I'm impressed," said Genjuro with a smile.

"I was in the middle of writing up a report on them before the meeting," Hibiki replied.

"Right then," Genjuro nodded. "Then I may as well fill in the rest of the blanks for you two. The Noise were officially recognized by the UN some thirteen years ago, but the truth is, they've been observed since before then. Long before. There are countless records dating back to ancient times from all over the world. We suspect that the old demons that appear in ancient legends and fables are actually the Noise, just with different names."

"In truth, Noise outbreaks are actually very rare. Which makes the last month's string of attacks extraordinary," added Ryoko. "It's enough to make us ask if maybe the Noise are sentient to a certain degree."

"Sentient? Are you saying the Noise have some kind of controller?" asked Hibiki.

"Now add to the mix that Lydian Music Academy lies in the center of all those outbreaks," Tsubasa finally spoke. "That's what the yellow dot in the center is. Someone or something is targeting the school for what lies in Sacristy D: Durandal."

"Durandal? As in the Norse sword of legend?" asked Teisuke.

"Durandal is an almost complete relic that we keep in the deepest level of this facility, the Abyss. We've been researching it under the supervision of the Japanese government," Aoi said.

"Fragmented relics like Tsubasa's Ame no Habakiri and the shards of Gungir in your chest need amplification through your song to become Symphogear," added Sakuya.

"Ah, but an undamaged relic? Our research into Durandal has shown it has immense power. Others can wield them too, not just an Attuned. This is another part of Sakurai Theory."

"A very multi-faceted theory, if you don't mind me saying so," Teisuke mumbled.

"The thing is, though, a complete relic needs significantly more phonic gain than a relic fragment needs to become Symphogear," Ryoko added.

Genjuro rose from his chair, lost in thought. "Well, it's been two years...maybe Tsubasa has enough...question is, will the government let us go through with it?"

"Unfortunately, there's a more basic problem. The United States wants Durandal through some kind of a peace treaty," said Sakuya. "Activating it now is bound to cause some kind of diplomatic incident. We have to be very careful with handling this whole situation, let alone Durandal itself."

Teisuke blinked. "The Americans are in on this, too?"

"Well, according to reports from the Japanese government, we've been told they're working on their own solution to the problem," said Genjuro. "Plus, our IC Security programmers have said there's been tens of thousands of attempts to hack our systems in the last few months or so. We can't be sure where the attacks are coming from, and with no evidence, accusing the Americans of duplicity is out of the question. Then again, this kind of counter-intelligence operation is our specialty. We are investigating further."

Teisuke was starting to get concerned. He looked down at the Sync Driver in his jacket pocket. Americans were willing to screw them over for one ancient artifact? How very typical. Not to mention, he couldn't help but think back to that American he met two years ago. If he, the Americans, and the Sync Driver were all connected...well, that just made everything even crazier. Still, he said nothing. It was hard to gauge much of anything out of this info dump at the moment.

"Commander?" Teisuke actually jumped as Ogawa seemingly showed up from out of nowhere.

"Ah, Ogawa. Is it that time already?" asked Genjuro.

"Yes," Ogawa turned to Tsubasa. "Tonight we need to sort out the finer details of the album." Looking over at Hibiki and her slack-jawed expression, he quickly donned a pair of glasses. "Ah. Sorry about the confusion. To the public, I'm the manager for Tsubasa Kazanari." He reached into his jacket and gave Hibiki a name card.

 _Shinji Ogawa_

 _Kotaki Entertainment Ltd._

 _Performance Division_

 _Management Dept._

 _Manager_

"My first business card…!" Hibiki breathed. "I'll be keeping this one! Thank you!"

"Oh, look at you, growing up already," Teisuke grinned.

As Tsubasa and Ogawa left, Hibiki turned back to Genjuro. "So you think something's making the Noise attack us? I'd hate to think someone is sending them against us intentionally."

"Well, never you fear! After all, this is one of the strongholds of humanity," said Ryoko. "Designed by yours truly, the genius scientist Ryoko Sakurai, who only typically appears on TV or in magazines. Our security protocols are made with a combination of pagan and cutting-edge technology! They won't be able to get anywhere close!"

Teisuke wondered briefly if this kind of grandstanding was the reason Coda got turned off from Ryoko.

"That does put me at ease," said Hibiki. As she sat down between Teisuke and Ryoko and took a cup of hot cocoa from Teisuke, her expression became more pensive. "Why do we...why do we fight not only the Noise, but each other, as well? Why don't we stop waging war?"

Teisuke looked over at her, wondering where the question had come from. Then, she felt someone's breath tickling her ear.

"I'm pretty sure mankind is cursed," Ryoko whispered. She promptly followed up with a small nibble on her ear. Hibiki screamed and jumped a mile high. Teisuke also shot up out of his chair, and Hibiki took the opportunity to hide behind him. "Oh, you virgins are all the same. I better pop that cherry before someone else does."

"Aaaaaaaaaaaand on that note, assuming nothing else needs to be said, we'll be leaving!" Teisuke said, shoving Hibiki towards the door. He was really hoping Hibiki wouldn't look up at him, because much like her, his face was fire truck red.

* * *

"Mankind is cursed! Or at least I know I am!"

The next day started pretty much the same for Hibiki. Sleep in. Show up ten minutes late. Forget she was supposed to be singing the school anthem when she saw Tsubasa in the opposite building. Get yelled at. And then remember she got back so late, even after Teisuke's help with the swift exit, she fell asleep without any more progress on her make-up report. By lunch, she was scrambling to get the last couple of paragraphs on paper.

"You don't have time to play around," said Miku as Junko and Shiyori fed her some of their lunch to keep her going. "That report is due this afternoon."

"Which is why I'm working with every minute I've got!"

"Oh please, this ain't some anime," Junko remarked as she stood up. "It's not like you're going to get much done at the rate you're going.

"What? You're not going to help?" Hibiki asked.

"We're probably just doing to distract you if we stay," said Kuriyo as she did the same. "Anyone up for badminton on the rooftop?"

"I'm down," said Shiyori. "Hina, what about you?"

"I'd rather stay. I did say I'd help her, after all," Miku shook her head.

Hibiki instantly brightened.

Later that evening, Miku waited outside the teacher's room for the impending verdict. She'd finished the paper, but it was several minutes late. Hopefully the teacher hadn't been so riled up by Hibiki's previous screw-ups that she'd err towards effort given instead of past recriminations. And so Hibiki came out, looking rather exhausted. And disappointed. Not a good sign.

"Well? Did she take it?" asked Miku.

"I believer her exact words were 'the hell is this chickenscratch? It looks like hiero...something-or-other..." Hibiki replied.

"That's not what I'm asking. You were still late. Did she take it?"

Hibiki slowly turned around...and a bright smile came on her face. "She's making a special exception! She took it! I'm so tired, but I don't care!" She raised her hand for a high-five.

"TACHIBANA! PIPE DOWN OUT THERE!"

Hibiki shook it off. "I guess we're on for the Lyrids!"

"Stay here, Hibiki, I'll get our bags." Miku quickly turned around and dashed around the corner.

"You don't have to, you know!"

"Nah! You've earned a break!"

Hibiki sighed. Count on Miku to already be running even when she didn't have to. Miku was even on the track team, so it was actually nice to see her put her skills towards something else for once, even if it was just that. And then, ever the killjoy, Murphy showed up. Her cellphone promptly began ringing in her jacket. If it was 2Div, that meant she'd probably be on night patrol again. If she had to go in after all the effort and hard work she and Miku had put in…

Then, against better judgment, she reached her hand inside. Maybe it was just Teisuke. Probably not, but she could hope, right?

"Hello?"

* * *

Miku returned with their bags to find the hallway empty. In fact, most of the hallways she could see around the courtyard were empty. How on earth did Hibiki get away? Miku sighed. Even when she had to stay put, she was getting in trouble somehow. Figuring something happened, or just wanted to avoid the teachers again, she went back to their room. It, too, was empty, save for a note on the table.

 _Call me._

 _-Hibiki_

Miku could tell where this was going, but nonetheless, she pulled out her cellphone and dialed Hibiki's number. Hibiki did at least pick up only after two rings. "Hello? Miku?"

"Hibiki-chan, just what on earth do you-"

" _I'm sorry. Something came up. I may not make it for our shooting star thing tonight._ "

Miku paused, half trying to calm herself, half cussing out Murphy in her head. "Is it something important again?"

" _Yeah..._ "

Hibiki did sound apologetic. Miku waved it off. "Fine. These things happen. I'll keep the door unlocked, just don't stay out too late."

* * *

"Thank you...and I'm sorry..."

Hibiki hung up her phone, trying to keep the fury out of her voice. If there was ever proof she was cursed, that was it. It was indeed Teisuke, but Teisuke was the one playing messenger from 2Div and he had come to pick her up. A swarm of Noise had taken up hiding in one of the local subway tunnels. Even if she had Teisuke drive her back to school (which he promised he would), she'd probably not be back in time to get any good views of the Lyrids anyway.

"Welcome to being an adult," Teisuke said apologetically, clapping her on the back. "Besides, the Lyrids will be passing through all month long. You've got plenty of opportunities."

Hibiki didn't answer, still stewing in her frustration. As she looked down the stairs, she saw the Noise already crawling up to fulfill whatever mission they had. Which was the only thing they ever did. Attack and destroy all humans.

"Teisuke-kun!" Hibiki said.

"Way ahead of you. Let's clear these guys out, I need to work on a mix for my next gig tomorrow night!" Teisuke brought out the Sync Driver.

 **ARE YOU READY?**

"Henshin!"

" _Balwisyall nescell Gungnir tron..._ "

 **HANDS UP! GET YOUR HANDS UP!**

 **1! 2! 1, 2, 3, 4!**

 **DJ SYNC! ON AIR!**

The Noise charged as Hibiki began to sing her song, and she met their charge, fighting with only whatever handful of knowledge that Teisuke had given her in hand-to-hand combat before they'd started. It wasn't much, but it was better than nothing. Sync himself had also dived into the fray, but there was a bad feeling in the back of his mind, even as he started laying into the Noise with his fists, as well.

" _Teisuke? It's Genjuro. We're getting reports of some kind of powerful energy source further into the station. Probably some kind of new type of Noise,_ " Genjuro's voice sounded in Teisuke's ear. " _Don't get too reckless down there. Wait for Tsubasa and just hold them off for now._ "

"We got an ETA?" Sync asked as he slew a Noise with a punch.

" _..._ _not sure. But it should be quick. Stay focused!_ "

"Figures," grumbled Sync, following Hibiki down the stairs into the gateway. Sure enough, at the forefront was a new kind of Noise, and it was the craziest one they'd seen yet. It was a purple one, and it basically looked like a walking bunch of grapes. "One time we'd like extra help and she's doing her usual Supergirl thing...Hibiki-chan?"

Hibiki had already left, vaulting over the gate to attack the Noise. She took out two of them, looking more focused than usual. She clubbed one into a pillar and smashed another with some kind of roundhouse kick, but then she turned to the new Noise. It promptly shed its grape-like extensions, and they began bouncing towards Hibiki.

And promptly exploded with the force of good C4.

"Hibiki-chan!" Sync dashed forward through the gate, but Hibiki was buried under several tons of concrete from the roof and the bomber Noise was long gone, leaving Teisuke alone with a horde of Noise in front of him. "Not again…!"

 **Focus on the enemies in front of you. I suspect the wielder of Gungnir is tougher than you think.** **You can save her once they're eliminated.**

No sooner had Coda finished speaking, Sync heard the rubble shift behind him. "I only wanted..."

"Hibiki-cha-HOLY GOD!" Sync barely had time to react as the rubble erupted in a wave of force and Hibiki shot out from underneath it like a cannon, apparently completely unharmed and mad as hell.

"I just wanted to watch the shooting stars!" Down went one Noise with a gut punch.

"I just wanted to watch the shooting stars with Miku!" Another Noise went down, this time with a haymaker.

"What the hell…?" Sync asked. Whatever had come over Hibiki, she had become a lean, mean, fighting machine. With a double helping of mean, as she wailed against the Noise without mercy. Then, Hibiki gave a feral scream of rage he'd not heard out of the girl ever, and she bounded down two flights of stairs with one jump. "Hibiki-chan! Hold up!"

" **How dare you...** " Hibiki smacked the wall next to her, and it buckled under the blow. She was past listening, and there was something in her voice that made Sync keep his distance. Something was wrong with her. Very, very wrong. And he didn't want to get in the way, at least until they were alone. " **How dare you make me break my promise to her!?** " More Noise advanced on her, but she was clearly past caring. And why was her head all black!?

" **My heartfelt words...my dreamy everyday life...** " One Noise fell to her fist. Another fell to another kick. Then, in particular brutality, she grabbed a blob Noise and promptly ripped it apart with her bare hands. " **How dare you take that all away from me!?** " She floored another soldier Noise and ripped off its head by its horn. Hibiki had become a one-woman wrecking crew, leaving a very confused and worried Sync watching from the stairwell.

"What in the name of Fred Savage's ghost is going on!?" He asked no one in particular.

 **This is quite the power she exhibits. If it could be properly harnessed...**

 _NO. NO. NO. AND NO!_ As Sync channeled his inner Daniel Bryan, he saw something bouncing their way: more grape bombs. "Not this time, you son of a bitch!" He quickly dashed forward and clapped his hands. His finely honed sense of timing paid off, and right as the explosion threatened to swallow them both, the two shockwaves met and canceled each other. When Hibiki lowered her arms, she was right back to normal.

"Get back here!" Sort of, as she immediately took off chasing her quarry again as it escaped down through the tracks into the tunnel.

"Hibiki-chan, stop running! I can't exactly cover you from back here!" Sync ran after her. Right as he said that, there were more explosions, but they weren't directed at the two fighters. Instead, it was upward into the roof of the tunnel, and the Noise promptly began scampering up the bolt hole it had just made for itself. "You know, never mind the Lyrids, I just wanna sleep when I get back."

Hibiki said nothing, her prior fervor disappearing. As she looked back up the hole, she saw something. A bright white object, searing through the night sky like a man on a mission. "Is that a shooting star?"

Sync looked up with her, and was just in time to see an azure flash suddenly cleave the sky in two. "No, but I have my ideas. Come on, let's try to find away back topside."

* * *

If nothing else, Tsubasa thought as she landed, Hibiki and Sync were good at flushing out the enemy. Her Wight Slayers fired off their jets to ease her landing as she looked at her handiwork. One **Azure Flash,** one Noise destroyed. She didn't bother listening for any further instructions, she just raised Ame no Habakiri and tried to find her center again.

"I have things I wanna protect, too!" Tsubasa flinched. Damn that Hibiki. "So…"

Tsubasa didn't reply, lost in trying to maintain her center. If she could just tune him out.

"Hey Tsubasa-san. Nice of you to drop by, finally," And Sync dropped right into her vision. He didn't sound particularly pleased. "Hope the flight wasn't too bad?"

"No," Tsubasa said dispassionately, turning away from him.

And right when she did, she saw something approach from the darkness. Was it a Noise?

No. It was too human to be Noise by the silhouette. Something was wrong. Something was here, and it was dangerous to all of them.

When the clouds parted, the figure was finally illuminate by the full moon. She was another girl, wearing some kind of silver armor with purple spikes, streams of lavender hair flowing out of the helmet she wore.

"No...that can't be…!" Tsubasa breathed.

"Uh, Tsubasa-san...the hell is going on?" Sync asked. "Who's the chick in the armor?"

"That, Sync...is the Nehushtan armor. It's the relic that we tried to awaken two years ago...and caused... _that_ to happen..." Tsubasa spat.

"Ah, so you know what this is," said the newcomer, a sadistic grin on her face.

"Did you think I'd forget that what was taken from me two years ago?" asked Tsubasa. "Do you think that I'd forget the lives of all those lost because of my failure!?"

Tsubasa raised her sword, ready for the fight. The girl grabbed one of her spike chains, ready to use as a whip as she summoned another object that looked a lot like a shield. Sync quickly stepped back towards Hibiki. Clearly Tsubasa was riled up. And he preferred cold, calculated Tsubasa to this one.

Tsubasa, meanwhile, was halfway delighted. It was almost like fate, its strings finally converging all in one place two years after the fact. Behind her was Gungnir, in the chest of a poor girl who had no clue what she was doing, and DJ Sync, the mysterious warrior from that same day. And ahead of her, the Nehushtan armor that had been robbed from them, along with so much else. It was almost cruel in its appearance. But frankly, she wouldn't have it any other way.

She would end this, finally, and avenge the stain on her -

"Wait, Tsubasa-san!"

Hibiki, forever unable to read the mood, suddenly got in the way, grabbing Tsubasa by the waist. "She's human, Tsubasa-san! She's just like us!"

"Do you not understand the situation we're in!?" Tsubasa snapped. "Rules don't apply on a battlefield!" She turned to her new foe, a smile on her face for once. "I have a feeling we're going to get along just fine."

"My thoughts exactly!" The girl cracked her whip. Tsubasa threw Hibiki aside with a hip toss and went airborne. The resultant shockwave of the whip hitting the ground actually blew Hibiki backward with enough force that she was sent flying into Sync, sending them both to the ground. Meanwhile, Tsubasa had already begun her counterattack, unleashing the **Azure Flash.**

And all the while, with Hibiki groaning on his back, Sync could only look up, a pair of frenzied warriors engaging in mortal combat. And all he could think at that moment was one statement.

 _This is completely insane._

* * *

 **END TRACK 04**

 _ **Sync Discs: DJ Sync**_


	6. Track 05

**Track 05: That Which Must Be Shed**

If anyone was more surprised to see the Nehushtan more than Tsubasa, it was Genjuro. And unlike Tsubasa and her glee at an opportunity for revenge, Genjuro was a bit more worried. He and Ryoko were two of the few survivors of the original research team that went into awakening the Nehushtan, and when it went berserk, the devastation was only rivaled by the Noise attack that he later learned had followed. When he'd regained consciousness, the First Division had shown up to fish them out of the debris. That's when he'd found Tsubasa on the arena floor, covered in ash and crying pitifully. And no Kanade.

That was probably one of the few times he'd seen Tsubasa cry in years.

So, what did he do when this ghost of failures past suddenly showed up in the hands of someone who was clearly not their friend? He ordered men to secure the area and get Nehushtan back at any cost, of course. And then took Ryoko with him in a car to take control of the situation himself. Knowing Tsubasa and her recent behavior, this could get even crazier very quickly, not to mention bloody.

"How's the fight going?" Genjuro asked. It was the third time he'd done that since they left 2Div.

"Much the same since you asked me last time," Ryoko replied. Gone was her usual joviality. "Tsubasa and the Nehushtan user are still fighting, and Sync and Hibiki are staying back."

Genjuro hummed. That was good. So long as Hibiki and Teisuke stayed out of the way, that meant Tsubasa could fight with relatively no strings attached.

"Commander...she's going to sing that song, isn't she?"

Genjuro knew the answer. But he didn't say anything.

* * *

The fight between Tsubasa and the Nehushtan user kept going, with Hibiki and Sync continuing to watch from what they felt was a safe distance. Which seemed to be getting smaller by the minute, as it was clear that this girl in silver armor was definitely capable of beating Tsubasa in a straight fight. And Tsubasa knew it, too. She'd disrespected her opponent's strength early, and now she found herself on her back foot.

"We have to do something!" Hibiki said to Sync.

"Do what? We're gonna get slaughtered if we get involved now!" Sync countered.

"Maybe alone, yeah...but the two of us together might have a better chance than if we fight her alone!"

 **She has a point,** Coda observed. **Tsubasa alone will not be able to win this fight. But if the three of you together pool your efforts, your chances of victory increase, even if only a little.**

 _Are you kidding!? Tsubasa will never go for it!_

 **Time is short, Teisuke! If you do not act now, Tsubasa may be taken out of commission and you'll have to fight her yourself!**

Sync groaned. As much as fighting this girl with an uncooperative Tsubasa was not what he wanted, the idea of fighting this she-devil without her was even worse. _I seriously can't believe you're taking Hibiki's side in this._

 **Just because I grant you power does not mean I must agree with you on everything.**

"Teisuke-kun, please!"

 _Fine. But just so we're clear, you start whistling Daisy Bell, I'm throwing you in the bay._

 **I don't know what that means.**

The Nehushtan user's whip caught one of Tsubasa's attacks and threw it aside. Tsubasa hesitated for only a moment, and was met with a devastating kick to her abdomen, throwing her a good ten feet across the park. _She's way stronger than I gave her credit for...is this the power of a complete Relic?_

"You really need to start fighting me seriously while I've got this armor!" the girl taunted, smacking the ground with the whip. "This isn't even my best!" She cracked it, and Tsubasa was forced to roll away, trying to keep out of the girl's range.

"Yo! Rollergirl wanna-be!" Tsubasa watched as Sync and Hibiki promptly charged into the battle right at her enemy.

"You idiots! What are you doing!?" Tsubasa shouted. Why did these two have to insist on doing this? What could they do that she hadn't tried already?

"Don't worry about them. I'll keep them entertained!" The girl took her shield-like object and pointed it in their direction, firing a green beam of light. Hibiki and Sync stopped, trying to protect themselves, but the attack was well short of them. And there was a reason why: the beam had summoned four long beings that looked a lot like toy cranes, towering over them.

"Those are Noise!" Hibiki realized. "She can summon Noise with that thing!?"

"Oh, that's bullshit!" Sync said.

The four Noise looked down at Hibiki and Sync. Hibiki's body suddenly reacted on its own, and she booted Sync forward with one of her feet right as they attacked, covering her in some kind of white substance.

"Hibiki-chan!" Sync picked himself up.

"I'm okay...I think..." Hibiki began, only to find herself unable to move. "I guess I'm not! I'm stuck!"

"Hang in there, let me-" Sync started trying to pull Hibiki out of the Noise trap.

 **Don't, Teisuke! You're no use to either of them if you get caught yourself!**

Sync promptly let go, frustration rising in him. "Dammit!"

"Don't worry about me! Help Tsubasa!" Hibiki said.

"I can't just leave you here like this!"

"It's okay! I'll get free with my Armed Gear!"

"The hell's an Armed Gear?"

"It's a thing Tsubasa said Symphogear users have! If I can summon mine, then..."

 **I seriously doubt she knows what she's talking about** , Coda deadpanned. **But we can't delay further.**

"...okay, then. If you think you can, go for it," Sync said. "I'll be right back!" And with that, Sync dashed off into the fray.

"Right. My Armed Gear," Hibiki said, trying to psych herself up. "If I'm gonna take Kanade's place, I'll need to summon mine, too! So...here we go!"

Nothing happened.

"Come out, Armed Gear!"

Still nothing.

"Why is it not coming!? What do I do!? What do I have to do!?"

The Nehushtan user scoffed, watching Hibiki struggle in the Noise trap. "That's actually kinda pathetic." She suddenly grabbed her whip again, knocking away another attack from Tsubasa as she came in for another round.

"I'm sorry, were you busy?" Tsubasa asked.

"Don't get cocky, bitch!" The armored girl stepped back as Tsubasa tried a surprise attack with her **Wight Slayers**. She grabbed Tsubasa by the ankle and threw her to the ground, and stomped on her face for good measure. "There's no way you're gonna beat me!"

"Well, let's make it two for Tuesday!" Sync came bounding in, fist shooting forward for a punch. It connected right in the girl's face.

She didn't even flinch at all. In fact, she merely reacted by throwing her own punch right back, and Sync fell right onto Tsubasa, bug eyes briefly turning to swirls.

"What are you doing, Sync!? This is my fight!"

"You're welcome! Ungrateful..." Sync picked himself up off of Tsubasa, helmet turning back to normal.

"So you must be the famous 'warrior of sound' I keep hearing about," the Nehushtan user said. "God, you're a disappointment."

"And you're overburdened with intelligence," Sync shot back. "So why don't we just cut to the chase and you can tell us why you're here for Tsubasa?"

"Oh, wait, you actually think I'm here for her? Pfft. You couldn't be any more wrong," she gestured at the still-stuck Hibiki with her shield/Noise summoner. "She's my real target."

"Wait, what?" asked Hibiki and Sync in unison.

 **Curious. Why would they need her?** Coda asked, mirroring Sync's thoughts.

"And you think I'm just going to let you take her?" Tsubasa asked. "I won't allow that, no matter how much of a weirdo she is." She pointed her sword upwards, and a hail of **One Thousand Tears** came searing down on them. Sync and the girl both had to jump clear, as Tsubasa's attack was pretty much at point-blank range.

"Again!? Seriously! Watch where you're firing that thing, you've got a really bad habit of short-arming that!"

"Then you should just stay back and let me fight her! Help Tachibana!"

"And she wants me to help you! I can't be in two places at once!"

"You're out of your league, Sync! I'm the only one who can fight her!"

"She's been kicking your ass all night! We can win if we work together!"

"And what do you think you could do!?" Tsubasa suddenly grabbed him by the edge of his armor, trying to glare at the man behind the helmet. "Ever since you and Hibiki showed up, you just made everything worse!"

"The hell does that mean!?"

"All you've done is just make everything harder! Fighting the Noise...continuing my training...ever since you've shown up, you just remind me of her!" Tsubasa was actively trembling now. "And that's all you've been doing! What makes you think you could accomplish anything except infuriate me!?"

The words echoed in Sync's head. They cut. They cut deep. And they mixed with memories best left forgotten.

 _What makes you think you could accomplish anything else?_

What nonsense are you spouting? Go back to practicing!

First came the silence.

Then came the rage.

"That. _Does it!_ "

Tsubasa felt a grip on her wrist unlike anything she'd felt before, and her hand was pried off his armor. Then a came a soundwave-empowered kick that sent her flying across the park. As Tsubasa picked herself up, wondering where that had come from…

"What can I accomplish!? _What can I accomplish!?_ Well, I can certainly do a lot more than you! Ever since I've met you it's been 'oh look at me, I'm Tsubasa! I lost my best friend because she killed herself saving us all from the Noise, wah wah wah!' And it's gotten to the point where you won't care about anyone except yourself, even when you've got people around you who are willing to take some of that weight off for you! You don't even realize we're there! I don't think you care about anyone being there! You don't want to protect anything! You just fight because you can't deal with the fact that Kanade is dead, and you're willing to kill yourself fighting just to hide the pain!

"Well, you know what!? You want to kill yourself, fine! Just do it so we don't have to deal with your hypocrisy! Meanwhile, I'm gonna beat this chick and save my friend, because she deserves a better teammate than you!"

Tsubasa and Hibiki stared at Sync, wondering what on earth had just happened in the DJ's mind to bring out such a terrible tirade. Even Genjuro and Ryoko, watching the events on-screen some five miles away as they continued their approach, couldn't really comment on the situation. They could only watch as Sync finally turned his attention to the Nehushtan user.

"And now for you…!"

The girl merely cracked her whip, and Sync promptly flew up about ten feet, and then straight back down. During his whole rant, she'd managed to snake her whip around the helmeted fighter's midriff.

"Newsflash: you talk too much," she taunted. She then yanked it back towards her, dragging Sync across the ground and into the air again until she kicked him back down. "I mean, I'm fairly impressed you managed to get all that out in the open, but you picked a _really_ bad time."

Sync glared up at her and immediately grabbed one of her ankles. _The Gift of Sync...maybe I can try to read her, or at least buy some time…_

A flash of light.

Searing pain.

Sadness. Fear. Rage. Rage that burned.

Oh God it actually was burning-!

"Gah!" Sync let go, his hand screaming in pain. The Nehushtan user was at least surprised enough by the similar sensation Tsubasa had when she felt it that she stepped off of him, and he quickly rolled clear. "What the hell was that about!?"

"You tell me! What was that I saw!?" The girl countered.

 **That girl must have been through intense pain in her life to create such a Sound...and it's not unstable the same way the wielder of Ame no Habakiri's is-watch your left.**

Sync turned left, and a whip struck him from the right, throwing him to the ground.

 **You fool! I meant your other left!**

 _WE HAVE THE SAME LEFT!_

The whip snaked around his ankle, and Sync was thrown a few times back into the ground before being thrown across the park and into the unforgiving trunk of a large oak tree. There was a bright flash of blue light, and the Sync armor disappeared, revealing a very-much-in-pain Teisuke as he struggled to get to his feet with his shaking arms.

"I don't know how you got in my head earlier, but I'm not gonna let you do that again," the Nehushtan user said, summoning a white and black ball of energy at the end of her whip. "So do me a favor and just _die!_ "

She opened fire. Teisuke couldn't summon the energy to get up or even just get out of the way. He just stared hard at the ball and braced for impact.

" _No! Teisuke-kun!_ " Hibiki shouted in horror. She struggled as hard as she could out of her confines, hoping, praying that something would show up, like her Armed Gear, or some other miracle, to save her friend.

And something did. An armored figure in blue with a sword.

"Tsubasa-san-!?"

Tsubasa Kazanari had intercepted the incoming attack well ahead of Teisuke, trying to absorb it as best she could even as the force pushed her back. But even she couldn't take the entirety of it all and was flung backwards, almost crushing Teisuke as she fell to the ground in front of him.

"Wow. Is that all you had to save him?" The girl landed a few feet away from them, whip still in hand.

"Tsubasa-san…why?" Teisuke asked. "After all that I said to you..."

"I freely admit...I was done for..." Tsubasa slowly rose to her feet, using her sword as a crutch. There was a little blood on her lip and dirt from the impact on her face. "I was once an emotionless blade that cut all enemies. But a weirdo with debris in her heart and an idiot DJ with a CD player made me see the truth. To be honest...I feel guilty that I survived that day, when so many others didn't. On that day, a sword knew what shame was. But that'll be dust on the wind. I will take back Nehushtan and finally redeem myself!"

"Oh really? Give it your best shot," The girl started to step forward, only to find herself unable to move, thanks to a dagger pinning her shadow. "What the-!?"

"Ha ha...not so funny when it happens to you, huh? Ha ha...ha...gah, it hurts to laugh…" Teisuke said.

"You think this is gonna stop me…!?" The Nehushtan user said, and then she stopped struggling in Tsubasa's **Shadow Binding** , having come to a sudden realization. "Wait...this is...you're not thinking of singing your Swan Song, are you?"

"Tamori...Tachibana...you're going to see my true determination tonight. Burn it into your memory!" Tsubasa said, slowly pointing her sword upward. "Now...let's finish this while there's still moonlight."

And then she began to sing. A familiar pink haze came over the battlefield as Tsubasa advanced, her sword cutting a light swathe in the grass. The Nehushtan user tried to use her staff to summon more Noise to hold her off, but Tsubasa had somehow warped in front of her, traveling the remaining distance between them in the blink of an eye. Then, Tsubasa put her hands on her foe's shoulders, and sang the last note.

A massive shockwave emanated from Tsubasa's body, unleashing devastation much like Kanade two years earlier. The Noise were promptly blasted apart, even the ones holding Hibiki as she was blown backwards along with Teisuke. The Nehushtan user had been flung backwards as well, whole swaths of her armor missing and her helmet cracked. The girl slowly picked herself up. If the armor had been damaged, especially to this extent, then she'd need time to recover. She quickly turned around and bounded out of sight.

Hibiki, meanwhile, had gone to find Teisuke. She found the DJ fallen further into the trees, eyes closed. "Teisuke-kun! Teisuke-kun, wake up!"

"Aah-! Wha-what-wha-huh-oh...Hibiki-chan…" Teisuke snapped awake.

"You're okay!" Hibiki embraced him, unaware of the DJ's loud groan of pain from her doing so. "I was so worried-!"

"Yeah, I figured, but could you let go? You're crushing me..."

"Oh! Sorry!" Hibiki said, realizing she was still in her Symphogear. She looked back towards where Tsubasa had been, and saw a massive crater in the middle of the park. "Can you get up?"

"Maybe…? Help would be nice..." Hibiki gently hauled the larger man to his feet, though he promptly started hobbling on one of his feet, no doubt sustained when the Nehushtan user turned him into a flyswatter earlier. "Ugh...I hurt everywhere...reminds of when I first met Tsubasa...oh sweet Jesus. Tsubasa!"

Hibiki blinked, and then remembered. Tsubasa. The Swan Song. She quickly wrapped Teisuke's arm around her shoulder and started (trying) to carry him back towards the crater, where sure enough, Tsubasa was still there, still standing, and somehow still in her Symphogear.

"Tsubasa-san!"

"Tsubasa-san!"

Hibiki dashed forward, trying to rejoin their comrade, but ended up tripping on an upturned rock on the way. Genjuro had also shown up in a black sedan with Ryoko. Somehow, Tsubasa was still standing, her eyes wide in shock as blood poured from her eyes, mouth, and hands. Her sword was on the ground, and one of her Wight Slayers had been destroyed. And somehow, she still had a smile on her face, despite everything she had just put herself through.

"I...am a guardian...of humanity..." Tsubasa said. "I am a sturdy blade...I will not...break...here..."

And she promptly fell to the ground.

"Tsubasa!" Genjuro promptly got out of the car. Teisuke, half-limping, half-hopping, went to her as well, flashes of Kanade going through his head as he tried to reach out to her through the Gift of Sync.

 _Her Sound...I can't hear it anymore…!_

All the while, Hibiki could only watch from her position on the ground. It would've been better if she could cry, or scream, or do anything, but the numbing cold of shock had robbed her of even that.

* * *

Hibiki and Teisuke returned to 2Div, neither of them very happy with the battle's result. The Nehushtan armor user had run off and the Noise disposed of, but it had cost them one of their own. Hibiki was the only one uninjured, mostly due to her being out of the fight. Teisuke, who was now sporting a sprained ankle and multiple bruises on his back and chest, just wanted to go home, but Hibiki had convinced him to stay, and quite honestly, it was because Hibiki didn't want to be left alone. So the two stayed, with the Sync Driver between them on the table in a nearby break room.

"The doctors have come back." Both of them looked up to find Ogawa had come into the room. He passed them to go to the nearby vending machine. "They say Tsubasa will live...for now." Hibiki sighed while Teisuke put his head down. "She will definitely need to rest until her condition stabilizes. But beyond that, it's hard to say whether she'll actually wake up or not."

Ogawa placed a cup of coffee in front of Teisuke while handing a cup of cocoa to Hibiki. Teisuke looked up for a moment, then just went back down.

"Don't blame yourselves for what happened, you two," Ogawa said. "What Tsubasa did was her own choice."

"...she almost killed herself to save us," Teisuke mumbled.

"Teisuke-kun..." Hibiki said.

Teisuke slammed his hands on the table. "God dammit! If I didn't lose control like that...if I didn't…now she's barely alive and it's all because I drove her to it..."

"What you need to realize, Tamori-san, is that Tsubasa Kazanari is not like most teenage girls," said Ogawa, sipping at his coffee. "She's never really lived a normal life. All of her life was dedicated to mastering Ame no Habakiri. She's never known love, or parties, or whatever goes on with girls these days. I'd almost say she never even really knew what life was until Kanade Amou showed up at 2Div one day and inherited Gungnir. Together, they formed a musical duo, a name you might be very familiar with: Zwei Wing.

"Then, two years ago, Kanade chose to sing her own Swan Song to minimize the damage of a Noise attack. A Swan Song, or sometimes called a Superb Song, is a powerful melody that lets a Symphogear be unleashed at full power, despite the condition of the user, but as you saw, the stress it places on the body is enormous. Kanade's body couldn't take it and she died."

"And all of that...that was to save me and Teisuke-kun, wasn't it?" asked Hibiki.

Ogawa didn't answer, but the sip of coffee he took confirmed it anyway. "Anyway, Kanade died at her post, and that was the end of Zwei Wing. For the last two years, Tsubasa has been fighting recklessly, alone with her demons. She suppressed all her emotions and thoughts and chose to live her life as a sword to be wielded. What you saw today was her carrying out that duty as a sword, and nearly paying the ultimate price for it. So, you were correct, Tamori-san, but, as people are wont to do, you were only seeing one piece of the puzzle."

Teisuke blinked. "Even so..."

"...it's too cruel." Hibiki was trembling in her seat, tears streaming down her face. "I didn't know any of that, and I just went up and said I'd be better than Kanade like a great big idiot…!"

"Nobody wants you to be better than Kanade," Ogawa said. "But, if I could ask the two you for a small favor..." Hibiki nodded, wiping the tears away. "Please, don't hate Tsubasa. She's been alone for long enough. She may not be on board with you, but I think you two will be great for her."

Hibiki nodded with a sniffle. "I won't."

Ogawa nodded. "Tamori-san, can you take her back to her dorm? We'll give you a ride back to your apartment once you're done."

"Got it," Teisuke said, picking up the crutches he'd been given. "Come on, let's go."

Hibiki was completely silent even as Teisuke took her back up the elevator to Lydian. In fact, she hadn't stopped sniveling since Ogawa's exposition. Teisuke knew the feeling; frankly, Tsubasa's whole life thus far wasn't just sad. It was vaguely familiar to him. And with all that he'd said to her, he was amazed she still went as far as to protect him from a fatal blow anyway, and then nearly kill herself for him a few seconds later.

Teisuke had had Tsubasa pinned wrong this whole time, and it hurt in ways that his ankle didn't. Ways painkillers couldn't fix.

"T-Teisuke-kun..."

Teisuke came back to the present, realizing Hibiki had gripped onto his jacket around his crutch. Tears were flowing freely again, but she was trying desperately not to cry.

"What is it?"

"I...I'm sorry...you got hurt…because of me...because I wasn't strong enough..." Teisuke sighed, pushed aside his crutches, put all his weight on his uninjured foot, and moved his other leg backward so he could kneel to Hibiki's level. The pain in his ankle was almost immediate, but at this point he was long past caring. "No! Teisuke-kun, don't-!"

And he embraced her.

"It's okay, Hibiki-chan. We'll do better next time."

Finally, Hibiki openly cried, arms around Teisuke, clutching at his jacket. The door opened, and Miku peeked her head out. Upon realizing what was going on, she threw the door open. "Hibiki-chan! What happened?"

"Miku!" Hibiki simply transitioned from crying against Teisuke to Miku.

Teisuke picked up his crutches and slowly picked himself back up, wincing at his injuries. Upon getting a look from Miku, he shook his head and said, "Go easy on her, okay? She's had a rough night."

Miku looked down at Teisuke's foot in a boot, wondering what would hurt him that badly and make Hibiki cry. A sudden thought crossed her mind about one possible version of the night's events that she immediately threw aside, not wanting to think about the ramifications for Hibiki if that was the case. Nonetheless, she nodded, and as Teisuke went on his way, she rubbed Hibiki's back and shushed her, telling her everything was going to be okay.

* * *

"Teisuke! Dude! What the hell happened to you!?"

"Potholes, man. Bane of my existence."

It was the best he could come up with. Ryou was already home ahead of him, and like Teisuke predicted, his first statement was about the ankle. He folded his arms as Teisuke tried to navigate around the furniture. "How long you gotta use those?"

"Not long; a few weeks at most. It's not as bad as it looks, according to the doctors, but I'm gonna be out of it for a while."

"Man, first your bike's transmission blows, now you've gone and broken your leg. Did you break a mirror by accident or something? I swear it's like you're cursed!"

"Oh ha ha," Teisuke deadpanned as he made his way into his room. He could hear Hibiki's voice somewhere in Ryou's.

"Teisuke, you know I'm only trying to cheer you up, right?"

"Of course you are," Teisuke mumbled. "Look, it's been a rough night. I just want to take my pain pills and commune with Morpheus." Teisuke got no reply. He blinked, wondering what was happening. "Ryou?"

Ryou appeared in the doorway, a mug of tea in hand. "You can drink this with those, right?" He nodded at the pills in Teisuke hand.

"I think so. Thanks," Teisuke took it. Ryou didn't leave, however, so instead Teisuke sat down in front of his computer, slowly raising his leg so it rested against his rig. "Ryou, just ask. Get it over with."

"Look, man. You've been acting weird for almost a month. Somehow you're a lot more consistent with your share of rent money than I remember you being, you leave and come back at the strangest of times, you've been hanging out a metric ton more with Hibiki-san than usual, and now you come home with your leg in a boot. I'm just...I'm worried, you know?"

Teisuke took a sip of tea. "What is it you think I'm doing?"

"I dunno. Maybe you're taking Hibiki-san on trips to Shinjuku or something."

Teisuke almost choked on the next. "Wait, hold up! Are you seriously suggesting that I'm taking Hibiki-san out of town to some love hotel in Tokyo'?"

Ryou said nothing.

" _Oh come on!_ Seriously, Ryou!?"

"I didn't want to leave anything to chance!"

"Mother of..." Teisuke facepalmed, cheeks turning red. "Such a wonderful friend you are, Ryou Taigawa."

"And don't you forget it," Ryou cracked a smile. "What I'm just saying is...just be careful, whatever it is you're doing. A lot of our old friends are gone, you know. I don't want to lose you, too."

Teisuke nodded, downing his pills and another sip of tea, and steered himself towards his bed. "...yeah, same..."

* * *

A week passed. There were no Noise attacks, which was good, because if there were any, Hibiki would be fighting them alone. Tsubasa was still in intensive care at 2Div, and Teisuke was still on crutches. However, the wielder of Gungnir had been off on her own a lot more, mostly preoccupied with her own thoughts. She'd brought them up at a previous 2Div meeting.

And it was mostly the same as the week before: she blamed herself for the ultimate fates of Tsubasa and Teisuke. If she hadn't been taken out of the fight so soon-!

She leaned back against the bench outside, trying to find answers in the clouds overhead. Tsubasa had been crying on that day the month before out of despair for what she'd been through and the sheer determination of just not trying to lose herself. In the end, she nearly died in the name of not just being a sword, but to be a model to live up to as one. Teisuke tried to tell her it was just a bad fight and not to read too hard into it, but she shot it down. The ultimate truth was, even if they'd never replace Kanade, they were still woefully behind compared to her and Tsubasa.

Hibiki had things to protect, too. And she and Teisuke both had to up their game if they wanted to protect any of it properly, like Kanade and Tsubasa before them. But as true as it was, what was the follow-up? And would there be any going back if she found it?

It was all just too much for a fifteen-year-old to take.

"Hibiki!" Hibiki was called back to reality by the sudden appearance of Miku.

"Miku?"

"You've been off by yourself a lot lately."

"Oh, come on! I'm totally useless all by myself, you know that!" Hibiki said, acting (badly) like nothing was wrong as Miku joined her on the bench. "I mean, I only enrolled here because you were coming here, after all! In a manner of speaking, this place is surprisingly cheap! I was hoping I wouldn't have to mooch off my mom and granny so much!"

Miku said nothing. She only took Hibiki's hand in hers.

Hibiki's fake smile disappeared. "I can't hide anything from you, can I?"

"Don't let it stress you out so much, Hibiki."

"...can I have some breathing room, though? This is...kinda something I have to think of by myself."

"Okay."

"Thanks..."

After a moment, Miku stood up. "You know, Hibiki, whatever it is you're gonna do next, make sure you be true to yourself, okay?"

"Wha-? Wasn't that in our Shakespeare class earlier?"

"I'm just saying, you don't need to change who you are. I like you for who you are, you nosy goofball."

Hibiki blinked. It was a running joke around school that she and Miku were known for being on the same mental wavelength way more than other friends, and she wondered if Miku was already nestled in her mind and picking through her recent troubles. "...is it really okay if I stay being me?"

"Why be someone you're not? I like you because you're you!"

Hibiki mulled it over. Was it truly possible? Maybe Miku was trying to tell her yes, she could be both. She could be stronger and still be herself. An invisible weight came off of Hibiki's shoulders, and she turned to her friend. "Thanks, Miku. I think I can move forward now."

Miku beamed. "Oh, before I forget! Remember the Lyrids? I took a video of them so you could see!"

Hibiki quickly took Miku's phone from her and looked at the screen.

"...what the-? It's totally black?"

"Well of course! It was nighttime, after all!"

"Wait, really?"

The two looked at each other for a moment, and then burst out laughing. Hibiki wiped away a few tears that managed to get away from her. "Ah geez...let's try to catch them again later on!"

"Sounds like a date!" Miku said. "Let's make this one a real promise, right?"

Hibiki nodded. She did have things to protect, after all. Even if her life was far from extraordinary (aside from the obvious) and the things she had were little, like promises to keep for later, there were still worth protecting. And that was worth getting stronger for, without changing herself at all. And that was good.

Hibiki gave Miku back her phone and pulled out her own, quickly shooting Teisuke a text.

 _* Hey. Got a minute?  
Sure. What's up? *  
* I want to talk to you about...the thing we do.  
* I've made a decision.  
Oooh, sounds serious. *  
* Teisuke-kun, this is important!  
Relax, I know what you mean lol *  
What're you thinking? Meet up at Flower after school? I'm buying. *  
* Totally!  
Sounds like a plan. *_

* * *

As much as Teisuke liked his corner ramen stand, Flower was hard to pass up. He'd heard about it from Hibiki when she complained about how everyone in her circle of friends had been there at least once and she hadn't, and decided to go one day on a whim on his way back from a gig. As a result, it only made sense to take her there to discuss whatever it was they were there for.

That said, even he had to raise an eyebrow when he Hibiki finally joined him at his seat with her okonomiyaki with toppings nearly a foot high. "Wow. Rough day at school today?" Hibiki said nothing. "...taking that as a yes. So. What's the reason you wanted to call this little pow-wow?"

"Ah haf t'ings I wahna-"

"Swallow your food, Hibiki-chan."

"I have things I want to protect, too," Hibiki repeated.

"So you said. Three times in two weeks, in fact."

"Teisuke-kun!"

"Sorry, sorry. Continue."

"Anyway...with Tsubasa-san...out, and you injured, I'm the only one who's currently able to fight the Noise. But, as I am now, I can't do much of anything...and after that last fight, I-"

"Hibiki-chan, come on. Tsubasa was the only one of the three of us who had an idea of what was-"

"And that's the thing!" Teisuke went silent at Hibiki's interjection. "We can't do much of anything. Not compared to Tsubasa-san or Kanade...and the way it stands, we'll never be useful if things continue the way they are. That's why I've decided. I'm going to find a way to get stronger, somehow!"

Teisuke raised an eyebrow again. "Oh? And how are you accomplishing this?"

Hibiki faltered a little. "I...well, that part is still kinda hard..." But she promptly went back to being resolute. "But I know I have to try! If not for my own sake, then...definitely for you and Tsubasa-san, too..."

Teisuke nodded, his face pensive. She was right. They'd been avoiding the issue of their relative inexperience in combat for long enough. Even after having a month to gain experience, their growth had been slow, and now with that girl in the mix, their job just became tougher. If they ever wanted to stand a chance without having to rely on Tsubasa almost killing herself to win, they were going to have to solve that.

"That's a good idea," he said.

 **Indeed it is,** Coda chimed in. **Perhaps you should be looking into that as well. Whatever training one of you gets, the other's bound to benefit from it as well.**

Teisuke rolled his eyes. _Well, yeah, but-_

"Teisuke-kun? Is something wrong?"

"No, it's just something else," Teisuke quickly lied. "So, how has everything else been?"

As Hibiki promptly began to ramble about the happenings of the last week, Teisuke focused on Coda. _You're right. But I think we'll let Hibiki-chan handle that for the time being. Meanwhile, we've got our own thing we need to tackle._

 **Oh?**

 _It's about Tsubasa. I was sure she was dead, what with me not being able to hear her Sound at all. But now that we know she's not...why was I not able to hear her Sound at all?_

 **That's a good question. While you're right in assuming a person's health does come across a bit easier compared to their other aspects when listening to their Sound, you have to remember Sound is much more deep than that. If I were a betting Mu...being, it has less to do with her health and more with, shall we say, internal affairs. Probably in the same vein as the grief that you suspect is corrupting her Sound.**

 _Thought so...wait, what was that I heard you say? Mu-something?_

 **Unimportant.**

 _Yeah of course it is...so what it sounds like is more like her Sound is reacting to something she's doing, more than thinking or is, even if it's just subconscious. Like she's...closing herself off?_

 **A fair assumption. More than likely she had resigned herself to dying by using the Swan Song. But, she did not. I would assume that because she's still alive, she's feeling more alone than ever, not to mention confused at the twist of fate. I mean, there is another, if less tangible, benefit to dying in such a fashion...**

 _Because if she died, she'd see Kanade again…_ Teisuke finished, eyes going down.

 **Correct. Now she's been robbed of even that, and, well, you already can see the end result, can't you?**

Teisuke tapped the table with the butt of one of his chopsticks, thinking. There had to be some way to reach out to her, some way to pull her back from the brink. There was the Gift of Sync, but would it still work if he had no idea if Tsubasa even had a Sound left to salvage?

"Teisuke-kun?" Somehow, in the entire space of mental conversation with Coda, Hibiki was halfway through her okonomiyaki. And based on the look of worry, he looked down and saw that he'd barely touched his.

"I'm fine, Hibiki-chan. I was just thinking."

"About what?"

"There's something I want to try."

* * *

"You want him to what?"

Genjuro nodded. "You heard me. I want you let Teisuke come into contact with Tsubasa."

Teisuke was amazed Genjuro had actually bought into this. He didn't give away too much pertaining to Coda and the Gift of Sync itself, but instead spun up _yet another_ lie about a "weird gift" he had and how he figured it may be able to help Tsubasa. Of course, the medical staff had a few objections to letting a patient in critical condition be in contact with someone when her body was in no position to be defending herself.

"Sir, with all due respect, Tsubasa's body just isn't ready for external contact. The damage she's sustained with her Swan Song has done more to damage her than just what you saw when she was brought in for surgery, it's-" one of the lab assistants began.

"I'm not saying he won't take any precautions that you would otherwise," Genjuro added. "And there shouldn't be any lasting changes done to her body if this succeeds...right?" He looked down at Teisuke. The aura he was giving off was as heavy and imposing as a brick wall.

"It really shouldn't...at least, not physically. Mentally, maybe, but it can't make her worse than she's been the last few years."

 **It might.**

 _You hush!_

A doctor at the nearby console seemed to think about it for a couple minutes, then asked a question. "Tamori-kun, are you allergic to latex?"

"Doctor-"

"We're the first and last line of defense humanity has against the Noise. If we can't take care of those who risk so much to defend us, then we don't need to be here. The way I see it, we have nothing to lose by trying something a bit extra drastic."

Teisuke appreciated the vote of confidence, but there was something the way the man was speaking was giving him bad feelings. It reminded of Coda and how he didn't trust anyone in 2Div. Was this kind of what he was referring to? But, in the absence of actual proof, he chose to say nothing. So he instead took a pair of gloves from the doctor as Genjuro went off to do his usual thing. _So, is there a specific...way to do this? I mean, I get the concept, but…_

 **Remember what I said about Sound being the manifestation of everything a person is. It's up to you to sort through what you experience and decide what's relevant to what you're searching for. But this above all: remember that what you find, you must keep in mind. Nothing in a Sound is accidental. It is there for a reason.**

"Are you ready? We'll be opening the chamber as soon as you say so."

Teisuke nodded, looking down at the sleeping Tsubasa, clad only in a cyan hospital gown. Whole swathes of her body had been bandaged, her arms, her legs, even her eyes and ears. An oxygen mask had been placed over her mouth. If she was still alive, Teisuke could barely tell. He still felt guilty about what he'd said the week before, but that wasn't important now. What was more important was to find her Sound and save her from herself.

"Let's do this."

* * *

It was completely surreal.

Teisuke wasn't entirely sure what to expect, even with Coda's words hanging around his head, as he tried to hone in on Tsubasa's Sound. But the experience made him wonder if he'd suddenly dived into his medicine cabinet and tried to down most of the anti-depressants he still had left over from his days in therapy following the Zwei Wing Catastrophe, and this was his mind short-circuiting from the inbound haze. All he could do was follow the vibrato as his vision swam with colors and his ears popped, adjusting to something he wasn't sure what.

"Goddammit! Let me go!"

Teisuke blinked. He'd heard that voice before. At once, the world stopped spinning and something appeared. A large room, with concrete walls and a single light hanging from the ceiling. And under the light, in a straightjacket and tied to a chair, was Kanade Amou, struggling and shouting and cursing like a sailor at a group of people in front of her. Including one Genjuro Kazanari, his face as stoic as it always was.

 _She was wild. Feral. Almost like an animal._

Another voice. Tsubasa's this time. And she was also there, although she looked a tad different than he remembered. For one, she was much shorter, and lacked the Lydian Academy uniform. She was cowering behind Genjuro, clearly afraid of the girl in front of her. Was he in a memory? Probably, if Kanade was still alive here, but how far back was he? He didn't really have a lot to go on.

"Tsubasa?" Teisuke asked. She didn't reply. "Helloooooo...?" He waved his hand in front of her eyes. No reaction.

"This is the girl from our report," an agent next to Genjuro spoke up around Kanade's rage. He was apparently completely unaware of Teisuke's presence. "Kanade Amou, fourteen years of age. She was attacked by the Noise while she and her family were on vacation near the relic excavation in Nagano. We also believe she is the only one compatible with the relic we found there."

"Hey! You're the ones who can fight the Noise, right?" asked Kanade, still spitting fire. "Give me a weapon! I wanna slaughter every last one of those sonsabitches!"

Genjuro, unfazed, approached Kanade and knelt in front of her. "You've been through a lot lately. Tell me about the Noise. We'll avenge your family, no matter what."

"Are you fucking kidding me!?" Kanade snapped back. "The only one who gets to avenge my family is me, you got that, old man!? Now are you gonna let me fight them or what!?"

Genjuro didn't flinch. "Even if that means consigning your fate to hell?"

"With pleasure…!"

Genjuro then raised one massive hand and placed it on top of Kanade's head. He rubbed her head for a moment, and then embraced the girl, all while still maintaining that cool, passive face he always seemed to have. Teisuke looked back at Tsubasa. The young(er) girl was still not sure what to make of this young girl in front of her. And then she happened to look directly at Teisuke, still off in that strange corner of the room. Her face suddenly shifted back into that familiar scowl, and a wave of energy suddenly came out of the girl's body, shoving him back into the wall-

"Shit!" Teisuke let go of Tsubasa's hand like he'd been stung.

"What happened?" the doctor asked.

"I think she picked up on my presence and she shoved me out," Teisuke said. "I probably should've expected it, but it still caught me by surprise."

"Interesting...did you achieve what you were hoping for?"

Teisuke shook his head. "I don't know. I think what I saw was one of her memories. The day she met Kanade."

The doctor nodded sagely, turning back towards the desk he'd been sitting at earlier. "Ah, yes. I remember that day quite well, myself. She was quite the terror. Many of us on the medical staff, myself included, feared more for her mind than her body, at least as far as trying to make her Attuned went. A girl with as much piss and vinegar as she had and her being dead-set on fighting the Noise, willing to undergo all that she did? Chances were pretty good she'd either die or go insane." The man chuckled, as if reminiscing on an old joke. "...ah, I'm sorry, I must have forgotten to introduce myself. I'm Dr. Okanaji, I'm in charge of the medical department here at 2Div. I also work directly under Dr. Sakurai as head of biomedical research."

"Pleasure," said Teisuke. Then, he caught himself. "...wait, Kanade wasn't Attuned like Hibiki and Tsubasa are?"

"Not naturally, at least," Okanaji shook his head. "At the time, however, we were experimenting with a process that could fix that. Of course, the actual details of this are highly classified, so I can't say much more on the matter. Surely you understand."

"Nah, it's fine...although, how long ago was this, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Four, almost five years ago, I'd say. Why?"

"Just curious." Teisuke felt his cell phone buzz in his jacket. He pulled it out and found a series of messages.

 _* Dude. You said you'd think about it.  
* You. Me. Dance club. Hot chicks.  
* Don't leave me hanging, man. Where are you?_

Teisuke hung his head. He'd forgotten he'd managed to get another gig at a local club and said something noncommittal about helping Ryou get in. "I gotta go. Hey, you don't mind if I pop in once in a while to try again, do you? I mean, it's okay if you don't, I don't want to mess up Tsubasa's recovery any more than I might-"

"On the contrary!" Okanaji waved it off. "I'm actually rather interested in what it is you're attempting. At the very least, it doesn't appear to harm her."

"...um, not to doubt your judgment or anything, but you sure? This isn't exactly hard science and you don't exactly strike me as someone into the mystical, doc."

Okanaji actually laughed. "My dear boy. You have no idea the things we do around here. You have only barely scraped the surface of _terra incognita_."

Teisuke blinked, and slowly began to step towards the door. "Riiiiight. I'm just gonna...you know, leave. Now. Bye. Thank you." No sooner than the door closed behind him than Teisuke threw up his hands and started quickly making his way back towards the elevator. "Is everyone around here insane or something!?"

The nurse next to Dr. Okanaji cleared her throat. "Doctor, if you don't mind, he does raise a good question. What is it that you're hoping he'll achieve by visiting her?"

"Oh, it's not what he'll achieve that I'm interested in..." Okanaji said, looking over at the computer screen behind him. "It's what he already has."

And for the briefest moment, the nurse could've sworn he saw his eyes shimmer electric blue.

 **END TRACK 05**

 _ **Sync Discs: DJ Sync**_


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